Say the Right Word
by nerdhawaii
Summary: Bella confessed her motives to Jake after he pulled her from the water in New Moon; what happens when she returns to Forks at the ripe old age of 25? Who have they become in the meantime? Ignores Italy, E & BD, rated T for mature themes. Bella is OC.
1. Chapter 1

It was difficult to acknowledge what I had done, once I was wise enough to have figured it out. _Nothing but the passage of time_, as Charlie was fond of saying. I wondered what his face looked like now; for more than two years our only conversations had happened over the phone. My mother had welcomed me back to the dry heat of Phoenix with open arms, and murmured quietly that some things were never meant to be. I didn't know whether they understood the way their perspectives collided with their own relationship. Time had hardly wiped the traces of Renee from Charlie's mind, and my mother's emotional dependence on him had never wavered in spite of her most recent marriage. Perhaps she'd fought a bit too hard against what she'd determined herself was never meant to be, but certainly was anyway.

Love is like that. Shamelessly thwarting our best intentions, brutally negotiating the standards we hold for ourselves. Love is unkind that way.

I was wise enough now to have figured all of this out, but only after navigating a long, lonely journey by myself. Only after the damage was already done. Coming home to Forks—to Charlie, to every miserable, raw, beautiful memory—was the end of the road for me. And now I was too old to ignore what I had done to everyone I loved the last time I'd been there. I thought of Edward, and the weighty responsibility his long life experience had given him, and sighed. _Just another apology I'll never get to make._

I yawned as my truck crossed the state line a little after midnight. The timberline was dense and foreboding, but I welcomed it. The slight mist in the air made me nostalgic and lifted the veil off of memories I hadn't picked apart in many months. Driving through the vast, arid desert between Phoenix and the blunt, wet dark of the Pacific Northwest was a startling experience—like driving between my conscious and subconscious mind, from the reasonable, wakeful world to the endless, silent sleep the trees lulled me to. I had never slept well in Phoenix once I returned. If I were a writer, and not only a reader, I may have been inspired by the changing landscape. As it was, I just picked through the images my journey provoked in my mind, and let myself wash over with regret, longing, shame, and joy. You know. The typical by-products of a long road trip by yourself.

And it had been a long road trip. In fact, it had been so long, that I wasn't going to make it to Forks tonight. Even though it seemed close after such a long drive, the Washington state line was the furthest thing instate from Forks. I knew very well that the pack didn't make it down this far regularly on patrol, but I also knew that their enemies wouldn't have made it a point to stay once they could tell I'd moved on. Victoria had never made her grand appearance in Phoenix, and I suspected that the Cullens had found her long before she could end my life.

Or perhaps….perhaps she had realized that once Edward and I were no longer mates, the sting wouldn't be fatal to him. Perhaps she was laying in wait for his next…companion. I smiled bitterly and pulled over at a well-lit rest stop. This would be fine for six hours sleep. I was sure Charlie would be wide awake when I showed up at six am, and it wiped the bitterness from my face to think he might even have breakfast waiting for me.

He'd been right, I mused to myself, my eyes closing, the radio off. Driving through Vegas had added time to the trip, but it had been worth it. The crush of people, the shock of neon…Jake would have liked Vegas. I could feel another rueful smile on my lips as I drifted off, the doors locked and the key still in the ignition.

_Just another apology I'd never get to make. _

*****

_What was that?_

I awoke with a sharp inhale, my eyes ripping through the dark outside the comfort of the cab. The truck's body was so high off of the ground I felt as though I were floating for a moment, forgetting where I was. Gentle rain tapped on the metal roof. I looked around for the comforting presence of the sun, and then, shaken, remembered exactly—_exactly_—where I was.

Then I heard it again. The same sound that woke me, a sound from a horror story Billy had told us kids around a campfire, once long ago. About young teen-agers on lover's lane, and a man with a hook for a hand.

_And then they heard it again, a high pitched squeaking sound…like the sound a knife might make scraping along metal._ Like the sound that was slowly moving towards the front of the cab, along the bed of my truck. My hand reached for my keys in slow motion. _They were scared—it got louder, and louder, and louder—_the wide-eyed face of a young Jacob flashed in front of my eyes—_and came closer, and closer and closer--_

Billy's words twisted the key just as my side window exploded. Glass enveloped me and the engine roared to life, the only sound resonant enough to compete with the scream of an angry vampire. A thin white arm snaked towards me, then began to feel blindly for a grip. They were going to climb in the car. _They were going to kill me._

Every smug thought I'd had about Victoria mere hours before haunted me in the split second it took me to know what to do. If I wanted to live, I had one choice—crush it. The truck was strong enough—they could stop me from moving, but only if they got in front. Whoever this was wasn't thinking strategically; I could hear the taunting words coming from its mouth but my mind wasn't registering them. I smashed the gas pedal down and the truck barreled towards the brick building housing the toilets, swinging the wheel like a racecar driver. It was halfway in the truck, the glass useless against its slick, hard skin. It was _her._

Victoria must have been beautiful in life. Once she was sure of herself, the feline nature of her movements terrified me, her eyes locked on mine and a wicked hiss escaping her feral mouth—_we were going to hit in less than three seconds. _One--the truck picked up speed as it raced towards the low, strong buildings, and out of my peripheral vision I saw Victoria turn almost imperceptibly--two—she began to push herself aggressively towards me, the leather seat ripping beneath her hard nails like wet paper—three—_impact_. I swung the wheel at the last perceivable second and smeared her lower body against the building. Outrage flashed in her eyes and then, just as suddenly, it was replaced by confusion.

And then she was gone.

I didn't take my foot off of the gas pedal. I continued the wide arc back towards the highway, picking up speed and honking my horn on the off chance there was anyone—anything, anybody—in the way. Of me, or of her.

She was nowhere in my rear-view mirror, but I knew she knew where I was going. There was only place where someone like me could be safe from demons like her. I shuddered to think I was luring her directly back to Charlie, and to Jake. Tears slipped down my face, my hair matting to them, my breath coming in short, hard gasps as I scanned the sky for the sun. Nothing. The clouds told me she would have all the cover she needed to run, even in daylight.

I'd have to tell Charlie I wasn't staying after all. In fact, I'd have to tell Renee I couldn't come home to her either. There was nowhere I could go, nothing I could do, to prevent hurting the people I loved.

_Same old Bella. Some things never change._ I swore softly to myself and pushed the truck up to ninety, the trees whispering by in a thick blur. Every time I thought I saw a glimpse of white I felt my heart seize, and then, after an hour, I slowed down again. It was just a little further, and I wouldn't get there at all if the engine gave out. I calmed myself with deliberate deep breaths, trying not to cut myself on the glass littering the seat. Charley's face when he saw me would be heart breaking; after all this time, I was coming home a real mess, driving a wreck and bearing a curse right to his front door…unless. _Unless, _I thought to myself, _I find the pack first._ Then we might have a fighting chance—then I might be able to rectify the mistakes of the past…No. I shook my head quickly, staring in to the dark ahead. _Don't count on it, Bella. Don't count on changing the past…just see if the pack can help you with the present. That's all._


	2. Chapter 2

I pulled up in front of the small house by the cliffs and tried to shake the glass out of my hair before I approached. I wondered if they could hear the truck. If he were here, he'd know exactly who had pulled up; the truck announced me wherever I went.

Instead, Sam met me on the porch before I made it up the stairs. His short, dark hair completed the image of a bristling wolf in human form, the firm line of his mouth mimicking the hard planes of his face and body. He loomed over me. Emily peeked out of the door behind him, a full foot shorter, the beautiful side of her face the only one I could see.

I burst in to tears.

It was too much—this wasn't how I wanted to return to Forks. I wanted to inconspicuously move back in to the world I had left, try to make sense of what had happened here so many years ago, try to be some of what I was when I first arrived. Someone that had existed before real love, and loss. Someone that had never hurt anyone. Instead, I had to walk back in to their lives to say that I had brought the worst kind of trouble imaginable back with me. I prayed that Jake was nowhere near, took a deep breath, and realized Emily was hugging me.

"What happened, Bella?" Concern twisted her eyebrow, her hands gently picking lost glass shards from my hair. Her nimble fingers collected them, preoccupied, but her eyes were wide and expectant. Sam moved down two steps, closer to us, but his arms were still folded across his wide chest.

"She—Victoria—she attacked me at a rest stop near the state line. She broke the window—"

"She broke the old truck, is what she broke!" A new voice joined us, darkly laughing from behind the shattered side of my truck. Quil stood up and waved at me absently as he continued to survey the damage, and then I noticed Embry loping towards us from the trees. "Look at what Bella did now!" I would probably have smiled if I were able to breathe, Embry having already started to chuckle.

"So she's moved on from breaking people, huh?" The woman's voice was cutting. Leah strode out from behind Embry, tall and lean, her hair much longer than before. She unlashed a pack of cigarettes from the cord on her thigh and lit one up as she stared at me. Hard.

Emily put her hands on my shoulders and pushed me towards the door. "Let's go inside so you can clean up."

"Charlie," I said. It was all the explanation I could muster.

"Does he know you're here?" Her determined expression faltered, and I took advantage of the pause to step back towards the truck. My mouth opened, but Sam stopped me in my tracks.

"Does _she_ know you're here?" His expression stayed still, unjudging, but formal. Quil came up beside him and turned towards me, his expression undeniably excited. The contrast between them was so familiar I almost began to cry again, but I held it together and nodded my head. No doubt she knew just where I'd gone.

"Sweet!" Embry's exalted cry startled me, and I jumped. Emily put her arm around me again. It felt like I'd stepped in to a time warp back in Phoenix; I was revisiting my life six years ago as if nothing had changed. Then I noticed my hands, Emily's hands. We had aged. We were surrounded by men who couldn't.

And Leah. "Oh yay. Another giant vamp-hunt on behalf of the biggest vamp-tramp that ever walked the earth." Leah's dour tone was new. She was past bitterness now, and every syllable was laced with casual acidity. "Let's go inside and talk business." She stubbed her cigarette out on the bottom of her bare foot, her eyes bored. "Leave the heart-breaker's club here to sort out how she gets home." And with that, she stalked past Emily and I into the house, the two younger boys following and Sam staring down at us.

I was surprised when he apologized. "I guess she's better than she used to be, but that attitude still isn't the best home-coming you could wish for." His eyes softened. "Don't worry Bella, the boys have been spoiling for this one ever since we lost track of her scent." He didn't need to mention that after I'd left Forks, she'd gone too. Emily's protective hand never left my shoulder.

I rode to Charlie's with her, and he looked thrilled with my arrival. However, it didn't take a practiced policeman's eye more than a second to realize that I wasn't driving my truck or unscathed; scratches none of the rest of us had noticed covered the left side of my body. None of it needed medical attention, but the fear of a father welcoming his daughter home from a long, lonely road trip is hard to assuage. Emily left us to the gently smoking breakfast he'd prepared, but I followed her out to the car to thank her.

That was when I remembered. "What about my truck, Emily? Should I send a tow-truck over to get it?" I winced, thinking about how I was about to be stranded in the house I had fled from, surrounded by woods that doubtlessly held the stuff nightmares are made of.

"I'll take it over to Jake's." Emily waited for my eyes to calm down before she continued. "When he comes in from the woods, about every other week or so, he does repairs for money. I'll just bring it over there." I appreciated all of the information she shared with me, knowing she didn't have to and thinking that I would never ask. Even if what it told me was a little unsettling. My arms crossed over my heart protectively, and as I realized what I was doing I forced them by my sides and put some more of my pride away.

"When he…comes in from the woods?"

"He spends most of his time as a wolf now, Bella." She spoke matter-of-factly. In spite of her kindness, she hadn't forgotten how I'd treated Jake. "He just works to make sure Billy has enough money for the bills, and that Sam and I can feed everybody." She grinned. "He's the best mechanic for miles. There's usually quite a pile waiting for him." She didn't bother saying he wouldn't notice my truck in that pile. It was a sure bet that he would; what he would do when he knew, though, I wasn't sure.

We said goodbye and I went inside to face Charlie. I hadn't even bothered to organize a lie. I was just going to tell him I ran in to a building, and let things fall where they may. He would believe me; my reputation for having accidents had never changed the way my reputation for breaking hearts had.


	3. Chapter 3

AN: It is an honor to have been favorited! I hope you are enjoying the story so far.

*****

I woke up in my old bedroom and sat bolt upright in bed. The shadows creeping along the wall told me it was late afternoon; Charlie was either out or the house was strangely silent, with one exception: my fluttering heartbeat raced loudly in my chest. The nightmares had left me once I left Forks, but sleep wasn't as easy now that I knew one of nature's most efficient killers was still stalking me. Even if the pack was stiff competition, I _knew_. I knew, better than any living creature on earth, how strong, how silent, how completely _deadly _they were.

Something deep in my subconscious broke open. I pictured Edward's face in the meadow, so many years ago, and felt tears spring to my eyes as if I had recalled them by will. I wiped my cheeks angrily, swearing to myself and hearing it echo back to me from the empty house. I could always love Edward; I could always allow myself moments alone with his memory. But I could not cry over him any more, now that I was old enough to understand what he had done.

_True love,_ I muttered to myself as I stumbled out of bed and raked through the suitcase on the floor for clean clothes. I had fallen asleep in the same glass-covered outfit I'd stumbled in to the house in, so I carefully pulled myself out of it, placed it in the center of the sheets and wadded them in to a giant bundle. There was nowhere reasonable to shake it out, so I settled for the kitchen floor and then got out the broom to clean up any remaining shards.

No time for a shower. I called La Push, listening to the thump of the large load of laundry pacing itself in the wash machine. If no one answered, I would walk there. Fortunately, Emily's calm voice greeted me, and she graciously offered to come by so we could talk. "Now that you've slept," she said, "it's important we know everything we can. To prepare ourselves." It was mysteriously quiet in her house, too. All the boys must be out in the woods. I told her I would see her in twenty minutes, and found a brush to try and wrangle my hair in to something resembling smooth.

Emily's car pulled up just as I was about to become anxious—not that I could have done anything besides worry. My position as a sitting duck was hitting home in a very uncomfortable way—no truck, no La Push….no personal bodyguard, vampire or werewolf. Emily's unusual but kindly face was hardly enough to scare off a viper like Victoria. I shuddered, composed myself, and met her with the door open.

"I'm really glad you came." For a minute, I stuttered, and then reminded myself to try and be who I was now—someone who showed gratitude. "I really appreciate how kind you were to me this morning. Thank you." I motioned with my hand towards the living room while I asked, "Can I get you anything to drink?"

"Coffee, please." Emily didn't sit, and instead followed me to the kitchen. We would both probably be more at ease here anyway. The coffee maker was exactly where I had left it, years before. Charlie never changed anything unless he had to—yup. The filters and the tin of ground coffee beans were both in the same place as well. Emily watched me make my way around the kitchen with no expression. I turned my back to her and tried to broach the subject that had brought us here, and then realized Charlie could walk in at any time. I had no idea where he was.

"Actually, maybe we should have gone to your house," I began. "I don't know where my dad is." Saying this out loud brought frightening implications to my mind, and I turned to look at her. Her blank expression broke in to a careful grin.

"Charlie's fine—Sue Clearwater and Billy Black harangued him into lunch at La Push's finest new restaurant. Co-owned by yours truly." Her grin turned impish. "Just lunch. He wanted to make sure he would be home in time to make dinner for you." We laughed together for a moment at the memory of his breakfast offering. Charlie wasn't a bad cook, but nerves clearly took a toll on his already meager abilities. "Maybe I'll try and convince him dinner's on the house."

"So you guys must be doing okay, then? I mean, you're running a restaurant, Jake is some famous mechanic now, and Leah…" I hurried to brush past her momentarily fallen expression. "Leah seems like she's more comfortable with the pack."

"She is." Emily's face still hadn't wholly recovered, so I could tell their relationship hadn't made the same journey. I suddenly remembered that Leah had included Emily in the _heartbreakers club_. I winced, but Emily brightened with a new thought. "She's second in command now."

I could tell the shock showed on my face. "How did that happen?"

Emily shrugged and wrapped her hands around her coffee mug. "It was Jake, really. He wasn't…up to the task. After you left. And Leah is smart, and strong. The guys respect her."

My body suddenly felt heavy, and I leaned on the table. It took a minute before I could continue, but I knew Emily wouldn't rush me. She understood how it felt to need forgiveness, and not even be worthy of it. I hoped in my heart that someday Leah could talk about Emily's accomplishments with the same lightness she had mentioned Leah's promotion.

"You know, Emily…Jake stopped talking to me. First." I inhaled, and then continued when I saw she was willing to wait. "He knew that I could accept that he was a werewolf, but he couldn't accept me as _I_ am. I…I couldn't give him what he wanted, and the way things were going finally just seemed…_wrong_ to me. I didn't push it further, when he finally said he didn't want to talk to me any more, even though it almost killed me because…because I didn't want him to wait to be with somebody who couldn't be with him the way he deserved." I had thought these words over and over in my mind. They were old words. But it was the first time I had said them to anyone else.

Emily gazed into her coffee cup. I had said everything I could say to her, so I decided to wait. Too late, I realized that even if Emily could forgive me for leaving, that didn't mean that Jake could. It didn't mean he would listen even if I got the chance to tell him what I knew now.

"You were using him, Bella." She looked at me evenly. "That's the trouble, now, I think. He grew up—he understood that everything the two of you had done was tied to the vampire. And he just…gave up." I bit my lip to keep from crying. "He was immature, so he thought that telling you he didn't want to see you again would make you push harder, make you realize that you loved him back." She looked down at her cup again. "When that didn't happen—when you moved back to Phoenix—he couldn't even be human again." When I moved to sit at the table, and we were finally face to face, she quietly said, "Now he's even worse, knowing more about heartbreak and looking back at the two of you in retrospect. Now he can see, of course, all the little things you did that he thought were about him, and were really about someone else."

It took me a moment to realize that Emily had tears in her eyes, and another one to realize that her words were not only about Jake.


	4. Chapter 4

AN: Thank you again for the reviews and the honor of being favorited! This has been a treat to write. I will try and update again tomorrow.

*****

It took me a moment to realize that Emily had tears in her eyes, and another one to realize that her words were not only about Jake. I reached my hand across and covered her hand with mine, and we both cried quietly for a moment together. "But Sam loves you, Emily. Sam loves you so much it hurts to watch the two of you together," I whispered.

"He loves her too," she said. "And I love her. It's still a mess. It's going to stay a mess for a lot longer, I think." She took a deep breath, shaking her head and doubtlessly wondering at the turn the conversation had taken. "It doesn't bother me until I can tell that he's…he's mixed up which one of us is which." She took another shaky breath and grinned a little bit. "He forgets what kind of flowers I like, things like that. It's so stupid to get upset about it, especially because I still feel so guilty anyway."

"I thought imprinting would take care of those kinds of things, details—"

Emily interrupted me with a loud laugh. The sad little smile was still on her face, but the tears were gone. "It can't change the man himself, his memory, his ideas. It just gives you what you've been looking for—a true partner, in my case. Adoration. But… Sam loves Leah, and she likes orchids." She drained her cup. "I'm a mums and carnations kind of girl—something I can put in the ground. Whenever I find an orchid in the trash I give it to Jake—" she stopped herself, but saw that I was nodding, and went on—"and he pots them at his dad's house." One more grin, before the conversation was closed. "And then I get about a hundred pounds worth of carnations and mums." We laughed again.

The silence that followed was heavy. Emily had to break it. "Why did you come back, Bella?" I sighed. "And," she continued, suddenly exasperated, "you should know that the boys have been spoiling for a fight for months. They were so bored they were talking about going on a 'working vacation.'" She put her fingers up in air quotes around the last words and rolled her eyes. "So don't worry about the vampire. Trust me, they're not." Then she looked at me expectantly. I felt slightly better, knowing the pack, at least, wasn't truly unhappy I had returned with vampire in tow. _Honestly, _I thought to myself, _they probably would have been a lot less happy to see me without one._

"I came back because I wanted to be able to see my dad without feeling like my heart was trying to claw it's way out of my chest." I looked up to see Emily with the coffee pot clutched in mid-air.

She recovered herself and began to pour. "That's honest."

I laughed. "Well, it was everything—Forks, the pack, some of my friends from school." Angela was my only friend from school, and she knew I was here, but had left it up to me to call. I was glad she wasn't expectant or demanding, just kind. I could tell I'd need another kind friend. Assuming Emily and I were now friends. "I mean, I used to come here every summer when I was little, and then I lived here. I grew _up_ here—I fell in love here." That last was quiet. "And got my heart broken. And lots of things." I felt like she understood. "This isn't a place I want to avoid. It's a place I'm ready to learn from, I think."

Emily smiled ruefully. "That's too bad. I thought you might be here for Jake." She twirled her cup. "That's a little naive, I guess. But we all…we all miss him."

"I thought he wouldn't—didn't--want to see me," I said. My heart was picking up speed again. The child version of Jacob's face that had visited me during the vampire attack flashed in front of me again. The blush that crept up my neck accompanied a confusing mix of doubt and hope.

"He doesn't see anyone, Bella." Emily's tone was once again matter of fact. "He has dinner with Billy on the occasions when he does come back, but he's changed." Her eyes locked on to mine. "He's a _wolf_, now Bella. A real one."

I wasn't sure what she meant. "All the guys are wolves, though, Emily. I can understand wanting to see more of him, but…I'm not sure I understand you?" And I could tell I didn't. I had finally hit on something Emily would rather leave to hints, and it must be bad if we were bonding over Sam's remarkably few flaws.

"He still phases, but he spends so much time as a wolf that even when he's human…he's just…not." Emily met my eyes. "I think you might be the only person he could be human for again, but it might kill you to find out." She shook her head ruefully. "And not that I'm encouraging you to do that, Bella. It won't make things better if you died trying, believe me." Her smile faded and a chill ran down her spine. "I guess it's not important, if that's not what you came back for."

"But it is. Partly." There were two mysteries I needed to solve. The first was Edward, although I had pretty much done that. Unfortunately, that time of my life had created so much wreckage I still needed to clean up…which lead me to mystery two: Jake. "But Emily—I don't want to do anything, _anything,_ to hurt him. Ever again." I deliberately looked deeply in to her eyes. "I will not see him if I know it's not the best thing for him."

She nodded appreciatively, then her brow lowered in thought once again. "I'm not sure any of us knows what the best thing for him would be. Especially Jake himself." She shook her head slowly while I drained the last of my coffee. "He's really not the same person any more."

After another brief moment we moved on to a carefully detailed description of Victoria's attack that morning. Emily began to write down my words when I described the vampire's face as I crushed her against the building. Something occurred to me as I spoke. "Brick doesn't really seem strong enough to damage a vampire, does it?" I looked at her.

"You would know better than me," she shrugged. But then her eyebrows shot up. "I'm sorry, I forgot you weren't here—the pack injured her pretty badly the last time they caught up to her. One of them took a chunk out of her calf. Embry." She grinned and rolled her eyes. "Said it tasted like somebody made ice cream out of rocks." We laughed, and then her eyes became serious again. "She still got away, though. She's the only one that's come through that they've never caught."

We shivered.

Just then, the doorbell rang. I looked at Emily and she shrugged. "All the guys know I'm here. Maybe they need something." We got up together and walked to the front.

Alice Cullen stood just outside, wrinkling her nose in the pale sunlight.


	5. Chapter 5

AN: Thank you again for the kind reviews! They are wonderful to read.

*****

_Alice Cullen stood just outside, wrinkling her nose in the pale sunlight._

Emily was ready to go before I was done gasping. "I'll talk to you later," she said, her eyes downcast and a line wrinkling her marred forehead.

"Emily—please." I turned to Alice, who looked hurt that she hadn't warranted an immediate hug. "Alice, would you wait for me in the kitchen while I walk Emily to her car?"

"Sure, Bella," Alice trilled at me, breaking in to a smile with her eyebrows raised high. In spite of my words, she quickly hugged me on the doorstep and slipped past Emily, her face once again wrinkling with disgust as she came close the scent of wolves. I smiled in spite of myself, and then turned to Emily, who was looking at me with interest.

"Well. I'll tell Sam that you didn't push one of us out of the way to get to a vamp." A wry smirk told me she was teasing. Almost. "Did you need to tell me something else about Victoria?" We began to walk towards her car, and I carefully lowered my voice, even though I knew there was a good chance Alice would still be able to hear me anyway. I scanned the street for more cars. None. Just Alice.

"No. I just wanted to make sure you knew I wouldn't dump you for the vampires. Even the ones I love." I grinned back at her, and we hugged goodbye laughing quietly. She didn't look totally appeased, but I could tell she knew things were different than before.

I walked back up the drive to the house. Alice was standing in the living room, and when she saw me again she threw her arms open. "_Now_ can I have a real hug?"

I laughed, and then felt tears sliding down my cheeks as well. My humanity seemed so stark next to her glimmering, surreal beauty. "_Of course_ you can."

"So you do still love me?" She said it quietly, her high, childlike voice wafting in to my ear through my tangled hair.

"Of course I do, Alice." I sighed, hiccupped and pulled away to sit down on the old couch. "How could I not?"

"Do you want a real answer or is that meant to be rhetorical?" She pirouetted over and landed lightly beside me. "Because I think there are significant reasons why someone—anyone—but especially you, Bella Swan, may not still love me." She looked at me intently, the supernatural glow coming from her eyes full of melting warmth, and sadness. Alice rarely looked sad. "Your capacity to love is astonishing, even for a human. Perhaps especially."

"It's what makes me so cruel, isn't it?" I looked at her, and tried to watch her emotions as they flickered from one to the next at warp speed. I was too slow to see them all. She settled on a wary blankness.

"You were never cruel to us, Bella."

"You're right, I think." I sighed. "I was only unintentionally, unbearably cruel to everyone else in my life." I looked down at my hands. There was something to be said for having a friend that had several lifetimes worth of knowledge at their disposal. I thought of Edward, and more tears came.

Alice understood. "Edward is hunting Victoria right now. It's why we came."

I looked up—why hadn't I realized that? Of course Alice would have seen Victoria attack me. "By himself? She's wounded, but still, Alice—"

"Bella, you know perfectly well that Edward is more than capable of taking care of himself. And any other one-legged vampires coming after you." She looked at me crossly, then her perfect mouth piqued up in to an elfin smile. "Did you know she had only one leg? You were marvelous, Bella. Even if it was typically careless of you to decide to sleep in the deep, dark woods." I rolled my eyes and grinned.

"Of course, she may have reattached it by now." Alice looked away across the room. "It's hard for me to see her, she's very clever…" Her lovely bob glistened as she shook the images swarming across her vision out of her eyes. "Watching her has always been unpleasant, but it's been a necessity to keep her from you. Watching _you_, on the other hand, has been fascinating." She looked at me with interest. "Your future changes almost every day."

I looked at her. "You watch me every day?"

She smiled. "Not _every _every day. But often." She leaned towards me. "I miss you too, Bella."

I leaned against her shoulder and inhaled the precious, sweet air that came off of her skin. "I hope at least some of those futures involve some kind of happiness." My eyes were closed, but I felt her head turn towards me. "I came back here to try and be capable of that—if I'm so great at loving things, why can't I be happy too?"

She laughed. "The eternal question, Edward might say." She watched me open my eyes again. "You're very happy, incidentally, in several of them. But when I look for you right now…" Her brow creased, "You keep changing your mind."

"Do you see Edward?" I knew I could ask her that.

"Always," she said, and sighed as my face turned towards her in shock. "But not in the way you're thinking, Bella."

I choked on my bitter laugh. "I thought he was the one that could read minds, Alice."

She rolled her eyes. "He is, silly. I just mean that…Edward and you are never really apart." She looked at me. "But you are different. You are never the same as you were—the more time passes, the further both of you come from the Bella and Edward that belonged together."

I knew what she was saying was true, but it broke my heart again to hear it. At the same time that the raw skin over the wound twitched, all of the new things I had learned about myself struggled to bandage over it again. If Edward could be strong, so could I. _This is why I came here,_ I told myself. _To be able to be strong._

"I understand why he did it now." I looked at her. "I still think it was horrible, and the worst thing to do."

"It was all he could do," she said. Her tone wasn't defensive, but plain and steady. "He had already gone too far in trying to keep you for himself. He had already altered your life beyond repair."

"He made it much, much worse." I looked at her, and some of my anger at him slipped in to my voice. "And he ignored my choices! He ignored what I wanted, and made me—" my hands swept over my body—"_this_." The tears coming to my eyes were angry, but mostly with myself. If Edward hadn't left me, I wouldn't have hurt Charlie. I wouldn't have hurt _Jake_. If Edward hadn't left me—

"He did what he thought was right. And the only reason he didn't kill himself was to care for you, as best as he could, from afar." She still wasn't defensive. Just that steady tone.

_If Edward hadn't left me, I wouldn't have hurt myself._

That last was the lie. And Edward had known it, and couldn't ignore it. Edward could never have let me hate myself as a vampire. He could never have watched me wish I'd died instead, like Rosalie. Like himself.

"It's funny…" I wondered if I would see him while he was in Forks. "It's funny how well he knew me, and still…I'm not sure he was right."

Alice sighed. "He is more right all the time." She looked at me again with a small smile on her face. "You are ready for a human adult life now, Bella. Now that you've been outside of our world. You've been yourself long enough now to see what you would be missing."

"I'm missing most of it anyway," I shrugged.

"No you're not." If Alice could cry, she would have then. "No—you are going to have the most unusual life of any human, ever, but you are not going to miss being one." There was a brief pause before she whispered, "Don't you know that if you would have been truly, truly happy as one of us…I would have turned you?" She held me closer to herself for a second, then straightened up and pulled me to stand next to her. "I can hear Charlie's cruiser coming. Let's make a cup of coffee, wash your face, and give him a good welcome."

"Okay," I said. Maybe I could have more than two kind friends. Maybe I could be a kind friend, too. "Do you want to pick out my clothes, or anything?" I knew, even with the intense conversation, she had still been holding back.

"That pink top on the left side of your suitcase is much cuter, Bella," she said and laughed, a sound that made it seem like stars were exploding overhead.


	6. Chapter 6

Thank you to all the reviewers! It is wonderful to know you enjoy the story, tried and true as the premise may be.

*****

"That pink top on the left side of your suitcase is much cuter, Bella," she said and laughed, a sound that made it seem like stars were exploding overhead.

After Alice left Charlie and I were able to have a reasonable conversation. That morning, I had been terrified of dying and of disappointing him, with neither option really being the worse. He carefully looked over me and seemed appeased at the mending process. Well, the outward one, anyway.

"So why are you really back here, Bella?" His voice was soft but the gruff undertone said more than his words had. He wanted me there; he didn't want me punishing myself.

"Just to figure some stuff out, Dad." I started half-heartedly gathering coffee cups and Alice's full glass of water to wash in the sink. "I thought it was time to come back here."

"Why now?" He had never been comfortable with the idea that I wasn't going to college. He had never been comfortable with anything I did after Edward and I broke up, including damaging Jake and myself, and then running off to Phoenix. I could tell he wanted something resembling a plan of action, and realized I didn't have anything solid to offer.

"I was ready." I turned to look at him. My notorious blush was creeping across my collarbones; I looked down, took a breath, and steadied myself. "I wasn't ready to come back before, Dad. I couldn't stomach it."

"You did leave things kind of a mess with Jake, Bella. But that happens with kids—breaking up is a part of growing up." This was a lot of words for Charlie, and he already seemed to be running out of steam. "It's not your fault if he…he hasn't come back from it."

"You seemed pretty sure it was Edward's fault when I wasn't coming back from our break-up."

Charlie's temper was sorely tested, but he withheld much of what I could see in his eyes. Finally he said, "It seems you did come back from it." One long sigh. "Well, what are you going to do with yourself, now that you're here?"

He was asking me if he should get his hopes up about me sticking around—whether I would finally go to college, whether I would be buying that plane ticket back to Renee any moment. I didn't know what to tell him, except that for today, I couldn't really go anywhere else. The pack and the Cullens were going to end the reign of terror Victoria held over my life, and I was a sitting duck without them. All of them.

"I was thinking of visiting Emily's restaurant." The glasses clinked against one another in the sink as I turned to look at him, my hands splashing absently in the sink.

He shook his head. Of course that's not what he meant, but he let it slide. "The food's delicious, but get a table in the front. There's barely room for anybody once those Quileute giants set up camp in there."

I wondered if the pack had grown in size or number. "I saw Quil and Embry over at Sam's."

"Yeah, they're usually running around with Jared and Paul, sometimes the Clearwater kids show up. It's a regular gang." No new names. No Jake.

I had to ask. "So…Jake never shows up any more?"

Charlie looked at me carefully. "He works out of the garage round Billy's place. Not too often, but he must never sleep when he does show up. He's gone again in a day or two, maybe once or twice a month I hear him over there." He paused, his eyebrows low. "Billy doesn't let me bother him. Says he prefers to work without distractions." Another second passed before he dropped his eyes. "I'd let that one lay, Bella. I think it's gone past the point of bringing over a six pack and saying you're sorry."

I rolled my eyes in spite of myself. "That's really too bad, since that was my plan." Charlie didn't laugh. It must be bad. I set the dishes down carefully in the warm water before I turned to look at my father. "I'm not going to bother Jacob Black. I'm not going to do anything that might make it so he never comes out of the woods again." He nodded to himself, and then raised an eyebrow.

"The woods, huh? Billy told me he had a job in Seattle."

I nearly swore at myself out loud. "It's just an expression, Dad. Of all people, I wouldn't know where he goes."

Charlie looked satisfied. I wondered if it was too soon to call Emily.

After catching up on Angela's life and avoiding telling as many lies as possible, I was stuck in the house with only Charlie for company. Our phone conversation had been wonderful, but Angela wouldn't be available for dinner for another night or so; she was driving in to Seattle to pick up Ben and their son from the airport. She sounded genuinely happy.

_That's what I'm missing_, I thought to myself. And again, I thought of Edward, and how he wanted me to have what Angela did. Was it possible, once I had lost someone like him? It was hard to believe.

_If only_, I thought to myself. If only…would I have loved Edward so desperately without the intoxicating addition of vampirism? Without the sculpted quality of his face, the malevolent design of his scent…would I have loved Edward as a human?

Part of me was sure that I would have. But then…would I have loved him the _way_ I did when he wasn't human? There was no way to know. There was no way to dissect the blind passion that had lead me to chose him over even my own life. He was made to be adored and to devour; that he could conquer the latter part of his nature was miraculous, but didn't change what he was. And we would never be _that,_ together.

I was okay with that.

Time away from the glamour of living with the Cullens had allowed me to understand Rose much better. Even her cutting remarks and absurd vanity couldn't hide the deep sadness her being cultivated inside of her. Edward must have known me very well, to see that in a few years, I would want to be ordinary. I would want children, and a small, steady life. I would want to continue to be part of my human family. Carlisle was right—Edward truly was greater than him, to give up the love that we had in favor of that knowledge, even if his methods were misguided and brutal.

I picked at the piles of my last life in my old bedroom. Large stacks of cds and hand-written papers, tacked up photos of Angela and I on camping trips, looking excited and nervous. An invitation to Renee and Phil's wedding, and then another for her marriage to her latest husband, Terrence. A soft, well-worn flannel shirt. Jacob's shirt.

I unfolded it carefully. It had stayed in the drawer for a long time, and its creases were deep. I had never washed it, just hidden it here. My fingers played across the buttons, and eventually my hands brought the soft fabric to my face. I inhaled.

The shock of sea salt and the wet slap of loamy earth filled my nose. That was the day I almost drowned. The day Jacob pulled me from the sea, pulled me away from the edge of my life, away from the echoes of Edward I held deep in myself. That was the last day I heard either of their voices. The illusion of Edward reprimanding me, my mind mimicking the strange velvet of his voice. Jake, sobbing, telling me he couldn't see me again when I explained why I had jumped.

And then there were other voices that day; Alice on the phone, shamelessly calling both Billy Black and Charlie. The relief in her voice when she heard me croaking that I was alright. Charlie—his voice, harshest, last of all, saying I could never be left alone again, not realizing that I was finally, pitifully, totally alone.

At least no one had died that day in spite of my ridiculous efforts, unlike now, with Victoria back to plague us all and crush that tiny victory in to dust. So many years had passed, but I knew to her they were nothing. I thought of Jake and shuddered. No one had physically died. But he and I both had pieces that had dried up and blown away, the gardens of our hearts poisoned by my selfishness and finally revealed to us both.

For me, that day was the day I had begun to let go of Edward. But for Jake…Jake had just begun to let go.

The phone call came later that night. Charlie was snoozing, but woke and wiped the sleep from his eyes as he got up to get the phone. "Bella!" He called out loudly without looking around. I laughed as I took the phone from his hand, and he shuffled sheepishly off to bed. I couldn't remember the last time I'd gone to bed later than Charlie.

"Hello?" I expected Emily's soft voice on the line, even though I knew there probably wouldn't be any news from the pack this soon. Maybe Renee missed me.

"Bella." It was Edward.

I hadn't been prepared to speak to him, even though I'd thought about seeing him earlier in the day. It had been so long, Charlie hadn't even recognized his voice. It was different to think of him with the shield of Alice's airy presence in the room with me. I would never be prepared to hear his voice, lulling me without trying into the desperate sickness I was working to escape.

"I'm sorry—I wanted…to be able to speak to you." I understood what he meant. I wanted to be able to speak to him, too; I wasn't sure I could do it and live. My eyes were clenched shut and my hand had begun to cramp where I gripped the phone. I forced myself to relax, even though I could feel the blood racing through my body and my breath barreling out of my chest.

"Of course you can speak to me, Edward." Now the tears came, sliding innocuously down my face, humiliating me. My body flushed and cooled rapidly several times in succession. This is why he had called, and not simply come by—to spare us both my body's humiliating betrayals and my lost pride.

"Would it be alright if…do you think…I could see you?" His hesitance was genuine. So much had changed now that I knew his act in the woods, so long ago, was a ridiculous charade. Alice must have told him how much I had figured out in the interim.

"Come on by," I heard myself say.

We both hung up at the same time.


	7. Chapter 7

_We both hung up at the same time. _

Edward was at the house before the tears on my face had dried. I sat on the front steps, grateful that Forks was, for once, dry. The day had gone by quietly, but I was exhausted; so many words spoken, so little real damage undone. I still wasn't prepared for his face, once he emerged from the woods.

"Edward," I said. It was all I could do. I felt like the tears I had tasted moments ago filled my body with the sea I almost drowned in years ago, leaving me nauseous and gasping for air. He watched me struggle until it was too much, simultaneously turning his head from me and moving closer, as if I were a magnet. I tried to control myself and built a sentence in my mind, forcing it out between my teeth. "Edward—thank you for calling me."

He cautiously turned to me again. His expression was fathomless, but his beauty was completely undeniable. The soft light emanating from him rippled as he moved. The crisp scent of his clothing mixed with the irresistible smell of vampire and I felt hopelessly drunk. Shaking my head vigorously, I patted the wooden step next to me. "Please come sit."

This wasn't going to work. What was there left to say? As my body settled in to the familiar sensation of being close to Edward, I realized I really did not want the same things I had the last time I'd seen him. It nearly broke me again to admit it, because I also knew how much I loved him—seeing him there, gingerly perched on the stair next to me, a slight chill settling around us. What words could capture the conflict I felt inside?

Edward said nothing. I noticed his hands gripping the edge of his seat and remembered that he hadn't smelled my blood in years. His eyes were the same dripping honey as Alice's, but it didn't seem to matter.

"Do you want to do this some other time?" I didn't know which of us hurt more.

He gently shook his head. "No. I don't want…I don't want to delay getting used to you." A wan smile played over the shadows hiding his gilded features, and then he turned and looked me in the eye. "I am so grateful you will see me, Bella."

"Of course, Edward." _Of course._ How can you know me so well, and not know that I will always see you? How did any of this happen? My thoughts coalesced around all of the suffering we had caused each other, each sweet moment wrung out and twisted in to these two bodies. I looked at him with tenderness; our time certainly had passed. I was now a woman—my body filling out, my voice and mind had taken the last steps out of childhood. Edward was a crystallized adolescent boy. We could never be together again. I couldn't let that break my heart right now.

"Thank you for letting me grow up." My voice was soft, but the impact of the words hit us both at the same time. _Thank you for letting me go, thank you for allowing me to become who I am, thank you for having the sense I could not have had._

"Alice said you were angry." He looked at me with trepidation. I knew for sure that there was only one threat in Edward's world: that I might be unhappy because of him. It comforted me to think that my anger had meant enough to Alice that she should mention it to him; this thought rekindled the spark I felt earlier, and I decided to let myself direct it at its true target.

"You left me curled up in a ball in the woods," I said flatly. It was a little harsh, but I was just recovering my breath. I couldn't afford to mince necessary words. "You belittled me." He looked crushed. The most important point was yet to come, and I was finding it easier to be honest. "And you ignored what I wanted, Edward. I know—" he met my eyes again—"that you did what was best for me. But it was my right to choose, even if what I wanted _wasn't_ best for me."

"But it _was_ what was best for you—Bella, you can't expect me to ignore the truth, to ignore what I know to be true. From harsh experience." His voice crackled electrically, but the undercurrent was pure grief. "I couldn't be your Carlisle."

"Exactly." I said. I was breathing normally again, as if we were actually friends, trying to discuss a rational break-up instead of a supernatural devastation. "I didn't want you to behave like my father, Edward, I've already got a perfectly good one." I leaned towards him, even though I knew this would be hard for him to hear. "I'm grateful now, but only because we've changed. What you did to me then was _wrong."_

His head was low on his shoulders. Lucifer leaving the kingdom would have looked the same way; an angel leaving the company of heaven was the only comparable vision Edward brought to my mind. Unthinkingly, I reached over and laid my hand on his knee. He sucked in a deep breath, enjoying what he had forbidden himself, with his face raised and eyes closed. He stayed that way for a long moment before whispering, "I did the best that I could."

"I know." I gave him that. "I know that you did what I couldn't. But," and I shrugged, taking my hand back, "even if we disagree, we're here now. You made this future, out of your own fear. And I'm going to learn to be in it. And be happy."

He looked down at me, his expression thoughtful. "You sound resolute."

"I am." I looked out over the dark street. "Well, I was, until I discovered Victoria was still lurking out there. Now you could say I'm distracted."

He sighed. "Her days are most certainly numbered. The pack has a new vitality that is a bit frightening, even to us Cullens." He looked over at me. "And then there is my desperate need to protect you, assuring you yet another body guard every step of the way." He stood up quickly and looked out over the yard, before turning back to face me. His eyes were soft and tragic. "I love you Bella. I have always and will always love you."

"I know, Edward," I said. I pictured myself from years before throwing my body at his marble chest, heart wrenching at the thought of even a second apart. I looked down at my hands now, folded weakly in my lap. "I will always love you too." He slipped away from me, picking up speed as he glided towards the dark.

Halfway to the woods his pace abruptly stopped, and he stood, frozen as a statue. "Your friends are all here," he called. I could tell he was trying to keep it light. "You're armed to the teeth with werewolves." As soon as he spoke, a chorus of howls erupted from the woods. They didn't sound friendly. He turned and walked towards me, slowly. "Someone is here to see you," he said in a low voice, and the woods began to move as though a hurricane were ripping through them, directly towards us. He whipped around to face the onslaught.

I scrambled to my feet and began backing towards the house, but a strangled cry froze me to the spot. "Bella!" _It was a ghost's voice_. A shiver ran down my back and Edward immediately lowered in to a crouch, a long snarl coiling out of him and rolling back towards the trees. A dark figure rushed at us from the tree line—but it was human, and female. Leah's long dark hair flew out behind her as sturdy legs carried her body toward us at startling speed. She didn't even glance at Edward, halting just beyond the limits of his spring. Her eyes searched my face for a split second before the words burst out of her chest, barely louder than the howling in the background.

"Send the leech away, Bella!" She looked desperate. Her chest heaved, and she stared at me intensely. "Get him _out of here_!" She turned to look at the woods behind her, where the trees were once again swinging wildly.

"I'm not leaving her while he's here," Edward growled. Leah's face sneered angrily.

"Too late, bloodsucker," she spat. Her body was beginning to shake, the trembling beginning in her clenched fists. "You left her once while he was here, and you'll do it again. _Now!"_ The taunt muscles in her forearms flexed while she mediated between the two bodies inside of her. "This. Is. A _pack issue_." The last word disappeared in to the guttural noises rippling out of Leah's body.

I turned to Edward. "Go! It's going to be okay—"

"Bella, please!" Edward's expression was just as desperate as Leah's. "He's _dangerous_."

I knew then that all of the anxious looks and whispered replies about Jake had not been exaggerating. I could tell from the sheer terror coming off of Leah in waves, and Edwards flared nostrils studying the wind. But I said that I wouldn't do anything ever again to hurt Jacob Black, and if that meant sending Edward away, I would do it. A thousand times. Even if meant feeling like I was going to die, or worse—actually doing it.


	8. Chapter 8

AN: It is such an honor to read all of your reviews! I expect as the story evolves their tone may change, but I don't even care. It is such a thrill to know people are enjoying this story as much as I enjoyed writing it.

*****

I said that I wouldn't do anything ever again to hurt Jacob Black, and if that meant sending Edward away, I would do it. A thousand times. Even if meant feeling like I was going to die, or worse—actually doing it.

Before I could say any of this, the front door of my house crashed open. Charlie stood there with his pistol cocked and pointed directly at Edward Cullen's head. All four of us halted, the air crackling with fear on all sides and the baying of wolves echoing out of the woods as though from a nightmare.

"What's he doing here," Charlie muttered. In spite of my racing pulse, I noticed he wasn't angry, really…He was still sleepy, but clearly awake. Clearly aware of what was happening…or was he?

I slowly stepped up beside my father. He had to know, in spite of Edward's posture, that nothing bad was happening. I had to make him believe something outrageous but rational, or crush his vision of the world. I put my hand on my father's shoulder and he immediately relaxed and put the gun in its holster, casually strung over his shoulder. The safety had never been off. I grinned with relief. _Of course Charlie wasn't that impulsive._

Edward had managed to straighten himself up into a reasonably human position. Leah strategically draped her long hair across her body and slid out of the porch light.

"Hello, Chief Swan." Edward's calm tone contrasted with his bristling posture. Charlie surveyed him warily.

"You're not welcome here," he said, and glared at me; I was oblivious to the moment, because an outrageous but rational lie had just occurred to me.

"Dad, Edward was here to help Leah get her dogs home." I pointed out to the yard. Leah didn't wave back, and I sighed with frustration.

"What?" Charlie looked at me and then looked out to the dark again. The wolves were somewhat more subdued, but I could still hear the underbrush snapping and loud pants coming from just beyond the trees. "That is the weirdest thing I think you've ever said."

Count on Charlie to make me laugh right now. Leah gently coughed out in the yard, and then I continued. "Her dogs have run all the way here from La Push, can you believe that? Edward was just leaving to help go round them up."

"Dogs?" Charlie was still looking at me like I was crazy. And hey, to be fair, I was, at least a little bit. "I didn't know Sue had any dogs." I tried to reel in the frenzied tone of my voice before I spoke again.

"Sue doesn't—these are Leah's dogs. Right, Leah?" I looked out at her. What else could get Edward to leave? What else could explain the howling, once Charlie recognized what he was listening to? It was the best I could do.

"These are definitely my dogs," Leah said. I could feel her eye roll from the porch. "Come on, Cullen_. Let's get out of here._" Her clearly unfriendly hiss carried all the way back across the lawn towards us, and I hoped Charlie wouldn't bother trying to understand anything that was happening. I hoped this was just feasible enough to allow him to sleep.

"I'm going to go up to my room," I shouted my hints at Leah just as she began to disappear. "I'll _talk to you soon_!" She made no reply. I hoped she knew whom I'd really been speaking to.

Edward was standing firmly on the bottom stair. His devastated face was breath taking in the muted glow of the porch light. I looked down at him and put my hand on Charlie's shoulder again.

"Good night, Edward. I promise I will call you tomorrow."

"But don't come back here." Charlie leaned towards him, ignoring my hand. "I don't care what Bella says about that, either. You're not welcome." He turned his head to stare at me before standing upright again.

Edward backed away slowly towards the street. I knew he wasn't going to leave, but I also knew he understood I meant to see Jake no matter what the consequences. He would give us enough room to be alone, while still being close enough to intervene if things were as dangerous as everyone seemed to think they would be. With that thought, my heart began to race again. _Respect my choices_, I thought as I looked at Edward. My heartbeat was already focused on Jake.

"Bella," Charlie began, never taking his eyes off of Edward's retreating figure, "I don't appreciate you inviting that kid over once I'm asleep." He looked down at my hand but didn't shake it off. "And I don't know why the hell Leah Clearwater was half naked in my front lawn at eleven o'clock at night, but I don't want that happening again either. You clear?"

I was clear. I was also aware of the difference between now and when I had lived here before. Charlie's words were well chosen; I was not allowed to invite people to his house and disturb his home, but he would not attempt to control who I saw or why if it wasn't happening on his property. Charlie knew I had grown up.

"Alright Dad, let's get to bed."

"Oh, _now_ she's ready," he muttered, "after a pack of wild dogs scampered on to the front porch and naked girls and weirdos swarmed up after them. _Now_ she's ready for bed." I laughed again as we walked inside together, but it died in my throat when I thought about what might be waiting for me tonight.

"Bella…" Charlie hesitated ahead of me on the stairs. "Bella, I love you." He peered back at me for a split second before muttering a good night. His words caught me by surprise, and it took me a moment to follow him. That was another thing I'd found and then left in Forks that I'd never had before: a real parent. I brushed my teeth and heard him start to snore peaceably in the old bedroom, and closed the door on my way to bed. I didn't want him to hear anything else unusual tonight.

_And what was it he would hear_, I wondered, as my feet turned towards my own bedroom and began a silent, hesitant march towards my door before lurching to a halt. It was closed.

I hadn't closed it.

It couldn't be Victoria, not with all the wolves in such close proximity. Had Edward ignored what I said? Had he blatantly chosen to invite himself in against my wishes? I began to feel the same small flicker of fury building inside of me as my hand rested on the knob. But what if…what if Jake was already inside? Waiting…

I opened the door. I looked around once and quickly closed it behind me, not wanting Charlie to hear me scream, and needing just that second to make sure that I wouldn't.

I smelled him before I saw his eyes glistening in the dark. The hulking mass breathed deeply in the corner of my room, close to the open window. _Jacob had grown_. I could tell without seeing him standing up, as my eyes adjusted to the dim light coming from the streetlight outside. It seemed like the whole world had suddenly stopped rotating. I don't know how long I stood, my hand still pressed to the doorknob, my chest pumping frantically against the vacuum.

"Bella…" His voice sounded like it was crawling out of a dead man's chest. He was naked, with dirt and twigs stuck in his hair and even his skin, his long spine arched to form a deep crouch. His head was cocked slightly to the side, and I could feel him inhaling the scent of the room. One of his monstrously large hands slid lightly along the floor, allowing him to take in more of my face. The fingernails on it had long since become claws, sharp and deadly. His eyes gleamed through the long, matted black hair hanging over his face.

Jacob was a wolf. I completely understood each word that Emily hadn't said.

If he attacked me, no one would be able to save me.


	9. Chapter 9

_If he attacked me, no one would be able to save me._

With that thought, I sat down on the floor with a thump as my knees gave out. The Jacob-wolf flinched, but didn't move otherwise. I knew that whatever I could do was done. It was up to him to breach the space between us, and if he'd wanted me dead I knew now I would have been. I couldn't force him to touch me, to look at me, to speak again in that horrible rasp…"Jake…I'm so sorry," I said. The words bubbled out at the same time my tears began to flow. I knew I had suffered. But the wounds I had caused were suddenly much plainer to see, and my shame was nothing compared to their depth. I couldn't believe that this monster had once been the bright, shining boy that had saved my life. I couldn't believe that this was what I had given him in return.

For a long moment we stayed that way, opposite each other on the floor. Eventually, the way a beaten dog will sniff an outstretched hand from a kind stranger given just enough time, Jake made his way over to me. His movements were awkward, as he was clearly not comfortable standing up, and his body moved strangely in human form. He shuffled around me, sniffing the air between us, spending as much time as it took him to begin moving to make his way close enough to touch me. I held my breath as his approach grew near.

And nearer.

He was directly in front of me, his face inches from mine.

And that was when I could see him—underneath the filth lining his skin, through the part in his once fine hair. His beautiful eyes stared out, utterly human. "Jacob," I gasped, "Jacob it's…it's so nice to see you." He blinked.

"Vampire." The word was slurred, but easily understood.

"Gone, I sent him away," I reassured him. I desperately wanted to reach out and smooth the hair away from his eyes, so I could see more of him there. I clung to his bright eyes, hungry for every flicker. They roamed the room constantly, and once more Jacob cocked his head as though listening to something far away before he replied.

"I…I know." I realized he was smiling. Not the one that was as bright as dawn, not the one that taught me how to smile again, but a smile none-the-less. Jacob had watched me send away Edward, and that was what made him come out of the woods. He finally sat down cross-legged in front of me, briefly looked down, and then moved his hands to cover himself before laughing a little. "Sorry."

"Don't worry about it," I said. I knew I was blushing, but I was trying to take the turn of events in stride. "My eyes are glued to your face, Jake. I didn't even know how much I missed your face."

"I knew," he said, and laughed again. It was a grating, wheezy sound, different than the loud, hard noise from before, as though his vocal cords couldn't handle the sharp blast of air his real laugh would take.

But it was still the same old Jake. After so much time…he was there, underneath it all. I couldn't help but tease him a little, I was trying so hard not to say the wrong thing. "So you couldn't be bothered to shower up or anything, maybe bring a pair of shorts, if you knew I missed you so bad?" I wanted to touch him. I wanted to wash him, pull the tiny burrs out of the smooth skin over his ribs, undo the knots locking his hair into mats. But I wasn't sure how long he could handle being inside a room, let alone get a scrubbing. _Please let me touch you._ That would definitely be the wrong thing to say.

His brow lowered for just a fraction of a second, and then he leaned in towards me with such sudden swiftness that I jumped backward, knocking my head against the door. "Why?" He rasped. A very familiar, very wicked grin was on his lips. It looked sinister peeking out from between the long sheets of matted black hair covering his face.

He was still angry with me. Even if he didn't know it.

I did the only thing I could. I reached out and moved his hair out of the way.

As soon as I touched him, he closed his eyes, all of his muscles tensing and the look on his face rapidly changing to utter stillness. He looked like he was listening to some illegible whisper my human ears couldn't hear, but I knew it was silent everywhere but in his head. I didn't allow myself to touch his skin. I simply moved the long bulk of his hair back over his shoulders, revealing his deep, black brow, the stoop of his shoulders, the calluses and scars on his stomach and limbs. I called his bluff, and he didn't care.

"Why do you think?" My voice cracked, my exhaustion beginning to show. I dropped my hands back in my lap and shifted myself to a slightly more comfortable position than the one I'd fallen in. Jake opened his eyes and looked down at me. His hair was so long that the movement didn't pull the curtain back over his shoulders, and we looked at each other for a long while. "I just wanted to make a joke," I said. His head moved to the side again. "But really, I just look at you and…I want to take care of you."

I wasn't expecting him to laugh again, but he did, and this time there was a bitterness to it that carried the deep rumbles of a growl. He bobbed his head down towards me, and his eyes watched me in a predatory way. "You can't." He pulled his head down lower and looked more deeply into my eyes, the strange angle of his head making it seem like he was about to strike. "You never learned how." Jake had finished crying a long time ago, and his stance remained when my tears began again.

"So what, Jake?" I moved my head forward suddenly, and his retracted. "I thought a shower would be a good place to start, but if you want anything else—a kidney, any remaining dignity I might have, anything—you let me know. You tell me how, and I will." His expression was as blank as when I first entered the room. "I can give you anything, if you tell me what it would take to make you—"

"Shower?" He was smiling again. That's my Jake.

I sniffled and laughed at the same time, my face a mess of fluids. Whispering in such a forceful way had hurt my throat, but the laugh felt good. "That's not actually where I was going with this," I mumbled. "But it wouldn't hurt." I wanted to reach out and straighten his head so he wasn't looking at me like a wolf, but I didn't dare. My boldness had peaked.

"Then where?" He wasn't smiling any more.

I took a deep breath. "Human," I said, and inhaled again. "I would do anything if you could tell me what you needed to make to you human again." We stared at each other.

"I am human," he said simply. It sounded so final that I half expected him to stand up and leap out of the open window, but instead he stayed perfectly still and watched me. "When I want to be."

"Wow," I said. I knew I was pushing my luck, but I did it anyway. "Five whole words." I could only laugh once I saw him grinning too. He looked serious again, and I felt the smile die on my face.

"It hurts to be human." It hurt to hear the words spoken. It hurt to see the grief etched on his face. Everything hurt, when he spoke in that awful voice. We were quiet again for a minute, then he leaned forward with another smile and said, "Five again."

"Six syllables, even." We chuckled, and then I began—very, very slowly—to stand up. "I'm going to sit on the bed, the floor is killing me." He watched me move towards the light, and a low rumble issued from his throat. "Relax, Jake, I'm not going to do anything that could get Charlie worked up. Just let me…" I fiddled with the switch, making it slightly brighter, "get this thing at a level that works for both of us. I know you've got built-in night vision, but I don't." He watched me walking, and then jumped to his feet and fled to the window like lightning. I found myself rushing after him before I could stop myself. "Jake!"

He hung his head out of the window and howled and I immediately halted and backed up before he could turn around. I sat down on the bed, feeling foolish. When he turned around he padded silently over to me and sat on the floor facing me once again. "They were worrying about us."

"They were worried you were going to eat me, you mean."

He grinned. "Maybe." His head was almost equal in height to mine, even though he was sitting on the floor. His body was neatly folded up, his legs wrapped and tucked in to each other, but in the brighter light it was harder to ignore his nudity. It hadn't seemed to occur to him.

"Don't think I didn't notice you used a three syllable word, I totally did." I lay down on the bed lengthwise and he mimicked me on the floor. Our heads were about two feet from one another, my face tilted towards him. "I also notice that you have yet to eat me."

"I don't want to eat you, Bella." I didn't bother with another joke. His tone was so sad I didn't know what to do. "But it is easier for me…to be a wolf." Each of his words had a soft, unused sound to it.

"Do you talk to Billy when you come in…from the woods?"  
"I even shower for him." We laughed, watching each other.

"I notice you don't cut your nails for anybody." I raised my eyebrows.

"Short nails are no good. For fighting." His nose was wriggling, and I knew he was paying attention to his friends outside again.

"Who is out there?" I wondered if Leah had gone home in disgust. In her place, I probably would have. She'd been right; I had immediately inspired yet another run in with the Cullens and a massive, full-time vampire tracking mission. I sighed.

"The pack. Not everyone…." His voice trailed off. I thought back to earlier, when I hadn't known it was Jake in the trees.

"What happened, when there was all the howling and wolfing going on outside of my yard?" I saw on his face that I shouldn't have asked.


	10. Chapter 10

AN: Sorry this one is up a little later than usual, everyone; the DocsManager (?) was down for a while. Enjoy!

*****

_I saw on his face that I shouldn't have asked._

"They didn't want me to see you." All I could do was watch his face. His dark eyes flickered around the room again before resting on my own. "I wanted to see you."

"Jake…" Horrible possibilities flooded my imagination; an ancient image of two boys bursting in to wolves and locking in midair flew through my mind. I sat up. "No one is hurt, are they?"

"No," he quickly reassured me. "Leah pulled us apart. And talked to you."

"Leah must be pretty badass," I said. I was looking the down the length of his body before I could catch myself—I was only thinking of Leah, beautiful, tall and strong, but physically half of Jacob's size. "You're enormous."

"Thanks," Jake smirked, and jauntily raised an eyebrow. I could tell that many of his facial muscles hadn't been used in a while, and the combination of cocky implications and awkward actions almost reduced me to peals of laughter.

"That's not what I meant! Jeez," I shook my head. I knew my entire body was bright red now, and I was glad most of it was still hidden in the layers of clothing I'd worn all day.

"Sure, sure," he said, and I almost burst in to tears again from sheer joy. "Leah pulled them away. She got me to wait." He paused, and I realized he was watching my throat—my pulse. Waiting for me to calm down. "She is a good second for Sam."

I gulped, and asked, "Why aren't you second? I mean, you were the 'natural…'"

"Didn't want to be." He looked at me steadily for the first time, his eyes resting on my face.

"Is that all there is to it? How can you refuse, if Sam asked you to be?"

"Sam understood." I thought about it. Sam would understand; if Jacob didn't want to be second in command, he would hardly bring the kind of dedication to the job an enthusiast would. But then Jake threw me for a loop. "And he can't force me."

"What?" Of course he could—Sam was the alpha. _The_ alpha. I knew from personal experience that disobeying a direct order was completely impossible for the pack. I'd watched Jake struggle with it before.

"I'm a lone wolf," Jake said, shrugging with a sly smile on his face. "I can't be forced."

Suddenly more of the conflict in the woods came in to focus; of course Jake wasn't part of the pack—he had defied Leah, and her authority was next to complete. He hadn't presented it that way, but I could suddenly understand the terrified look in her eyes. I stood up. Jake was immediately on his feet and breathing so deeply his chest muscles were flexing; he was _smelling _me, his sensitive nose perusing my pheromones, and lowering into a feral crouch.

"Jeez, Jake. Relax—I was just going to tell them it was okay, you're going to sleep here tonight."

His head cocked to the side again. "I don't sleep at night." His voice was beginning to have slightly more inflection, but it was also becoming more hoarse, as if it were tired.

I rolled my eyes. "I figured as much, wolf-boy. I just thought some of _them _might want to." I turned and looked at him more seriously. "You can leave whenever you want, obviously, but I would like you to stay and talk to me until then. Or until your voice gives out, whichever. If that's okay." I sighed. "I just don't want them to wait around outside, thinking we're on the verge of disaster here."

He didn't respond, but his chest stopped heaving. I took this to be as good a sign as any, and moved over to the window. I didn't see anything moving, but I knew they were there. I stage whispered, "Hello? Guys? It's okay—he's going to stay here."

Almost instantly I saw a wave from the trees. The wolves must be unnerved; their usual approach was silent, in spite of their size. Leah emerged, looking fierce but drained. I scanned her body shamelessly for cuts or bruises but she seemed unscathed. "Is he alright?" She didn't bother to whisper, and I put my finger to my lips in response. _"Is. He. Alright_," she hissed up at me. Her sarcasm was infectious.

"_Ask. Him."_ I turned to look at Jake and jumped when I realized he was only a foot behind me. He laughed with no sound as my heart returned to normal, and I motioned behind me. "Now they want to make sure _I'm_ not going to eat _you_."

Jake leaned past me out of the window. This was the first time he had stood fully upright, and I was close enough to his body to count his massive ribs. The smell that hung on him was mostly that of dirt, but there were traces of more sinister things—blood, primarily—in it. Jacob's body was covered with scars and calluses. What could do that to a werewolf's body, with their supernatural healing ability, I didn't want to know…and yet, I knew, given enough time, I would ask. I wanted to know everything about Jake's life—his second life, as it were, running in brutal conjunction with mine. How else could we move on to the next one?

"I'm fine, Leah." Jake said. His voice was becoming a croak. "Thank you." He pulled his head inside, slunk back down in a crouch, and ambled over to the end of the bed where he had been before. While I watched, he once again neatly folded his long limbs and lightly sat, sighing, his effort at human communication clearly taking a toll.

I looked back out at Leah. "It's okay, Leah. When he gets tired of me he'll just leave."

"I'm worried _you'll_ get tired of _him_, vamp-tramp," Leah hissed back. She scowled up at me, but then shrugged. "But it is nice to hear him speak." She began to walk back to the woods. "I'm going to get Sam and Seth. The rest of us are done for the night." That's when I realized that the entire rest of the pack, however many that might have been, were out in the woods trying to keep the Jacob-wolf from me. I looked back over at him, and then back at Leah's fading form. I felt nervous and sad once again.

"Jake…" I began, then faltered. This wasn't my problem to mend. The pack was their own responsibility, as Leah had made clear to Edward earlier that night. I had no place in it.

"No one is hurt," Jake repeated, once again reading my mind as easily as if I had voiced my concerns out loud. "I frighten them because…they can't hear me."

"What do you mean?" I was sure I didn't understand. I came back to my previous post lying along the edge of the bed and looked down at him, and he once again mimicked me and lay along the floor on his side. He peered up at me using his eyes, his head facing forward. I expected his tongue to loll out of the corner of his mouth any second.

"No more pack mind." Ah. So Jacob had not only become a wolf ninety percent of the time, he was a wolf that didn't socialize with other wolves. _I'm a lone wolf_, he'd said, and I realized how complete his isolation must be.

Another thought occurred to me. Leah had wanted me to send Edward away without knowing whether Jake wanted to kill me or not? That seemed low, even for her, and I knew the expression on my face was crushed. Did I really deserve that? I knew now without a doubt, that Jacob could easily have killed me. Jacob…Jacob looked like he might actually give Edward a run for his money.

Jake sat up and brought his face close to mine again, his nostrils working to bring in whatever emotion I was feeling. I almost wanted to laugh, but I didn't have it in me.

"What did I say?" He knew I was upset, but he didn't know why.

"No—no, it's nothing you said. I just realized…I guess I was confused about the sequence of events earlier." He didn't move away, his eyes clearly telling me he was confused now too. "I didn't know Leah hated me that much, to be honest," I said with a rueful smile. "She didn't know if you were going to kill me, but she wanted to make sure Edward wouldn't get in the way?"

Jacob's lips pulled back and his teeth were bared at me in the same moment that I registered I'd said Edward's name to his sworn enemy.


	11. Chapter 11

AN: This one is a teensy bit longer than usual just because I couldn't find a more reasonable breaking point. Thank you so much to the many reviewers that provide so much encouragement!

*****

_Jacob's lips pulled back and his teeth were bared at me in the same moment that I registered I'd said Edward's name to his sworn enemy. _The noise that came from inside of Jacob was completely inhuman. The blood left my face and I involuntarily shrunk away from him, looking for a way to legitimize what I'd said. "Jake—listen—I'd told him goodbye. I was done talking to him—"

"I _know_," Jake snarled. He was back in his crouch now, but the growling had gone. "I wanted to see you _because_ you said goodbye." His eyes closed, and it took me a minute to see what he was doing. I remembered another night, a million years ago, when a boy named Jacob Black had made the same face in this same bedroom, trying desperately to control himself. He exhaled deeply, and the smell of blood and dirt momentarily filled the room, as if the wolf were leaving his body. "I've waited years to hear you…tell him goodbye." He looked down at me again. His eyes were clear and bright, softened with the effort of speaking and feeling.

I found myself lost for words. The guiding emotions inside of me wanted to reply with more inappropriate wishes, more selfish and probing questions, but I waited. It occurred to me that I had just witnessed the beginnings of what everyone had feared—the monster inside of Jacob _was_ Jacob now. He spent so little time with human emotions and reactions that his body had immediately responded with violence to a thought—or a memory—that hurt, even if rationally he knew there was no threat. But they couldn't have known, without seeing inside of his mind, how much Jake was left in the wolf. I thought of the effort what I had just seen must have taken him and shuddered.

Jake looked ashamed and backed away from me, his head instantly lowering submissively, his weight back on all fours. "No, Jake—" I called out to him, and he stopped moving, but didn't raise his eyes. He was reacting to the shiver he had seen go racing through my body. "I was only thinking about how hard this must be for you, to go from being…an animal, to a person, having a hard discussion with…whatever I am to you." He met my eyes again. "Please come closer, I don't want you to go away." As earlier, with Edward, I found it was crucial to say what I meant. I couldn't afford a single wasted word. To prove what I said I moved forward and lay back down across the bottom of my bed.

He moved towards me again, but stayed seated instead of laying down like before. His head was easily two feet above mine, his hair hanging down. We were quiet for a minute.

"Leah knew I wouldn't hurt you," he whispered to me. "Leah and Sam understand the way I feel about you." He took a deep breath. His face was very dark beneath the curtain of his hair, the dim light he'd let me turn on elongating the shadows across his features. "Leah was scared…I would hurt the pack." I didn't dwell on the image of Jacob's massive wolf body rampaging through Quil and Embry, his beloved friends.

"But…Edward?" I whispered back, determined to acclimate him to the name; it would come up many more times, I was sure. I waited until his jaw unlocked to continue. "How would fighting him hurt the pack?"

"Break the truce," he simply said, and I nodded, wondering at how much I had forgotten.

"Leah is smart," I said.

"Yes," Jake said. "Leah and Sam…make great leaders." Fierceness blazed in his eyes when he looked at me. "The vampire would not have stopped me."

I didn't take the bait. For one thing, Jake might be right; I had never seen anything—human, vampire, or wolf—as terrifying as my reintroduction to Jake. The only word that fit was _monster. _Even though we were whispering together and he was sitting upright, the air of wildness around him never left for a second, and the image of his bared teeth would reappear in my nightmares, I was sure.

I was also battling several other feelings…Jake was willing to fight through his own pack just to see me again? After all of this time? I wasn't sure what to do with that. I still wasn't entirely comfortable with my own reasons for seeing Jake; I didn't trust myself to care for him first. If I found I was using him again, I couldn't live with myself. But it wasn't only humility and a twisted nobility that bound me to this room with the monster. The names for how I felt squirmed around in my chest as I looked into the shadows of his face.

"Jacob…" I stopped myself, checked my intentions, and continued, "why did you want to see me?" Was there an answer that would have made me uncomfortable enough to not want to know? I couldn't think of one. _To make you beg for forgiveness. To tell you I love you. To see you humbled by time. To ease some of my loneliness. _All of them made sense, in our bizarre world. What would I do with the information? _That was the thing,_ I promised myself; _I wouldn't do anything with it._ I would allow Jake to decide what to do with it.

He was silent for much longer than these thoughts raged in my mind. Finally he laid down again, flat on his long back, and stretched out staring at the ceiling. He would have looked starved if not for the miles of muscle draping his frame. I stared unabashedly at the scars, trying to decipher them…were they teeth marks? Layer upon layer of razor blades diving in to his molten skin? I shook my head and pressed my eyelids with my fists.

"In the woods, by myself, there are no words," Jake whispered. He closed his eyes. "I have seen your face for a long time, losing…the words we had together." His voice was trance-like, and I found myself leaning over the edge of the bed to listen more closely. "When Leah found me…she said you were here, so I came again. I watched for you. I watched you with him—" the murder in his whisper was so blunt my heart seized—"and when you said goodbye to him…I missed words." His eyes were still closed.

"You missed being human, Jake," I whispered back.

"Only with you," he replied, and turned his head to look at me. I crawled down off the bed and sat next to him, curled beside his shoulder and looking down at his face. His hair fell back below him, and I could see every faint line traced by mysterious cause into his skin. A vivid white slice interrupted the deep ocher of his lips, and beneath his left eye another scar ran parallel to the dense edge of his lashes. He watched me look at him. I noticed that all of his muscles were tense, his pulse racing. This was the closest he had been to anyone in years, I realized, and pulled back a little.

"I'm not who I was," I said. I didn't want him to think I was something or someone I couldn't be; I wasn't frail and clumsy and loveably malleable Bella Swan any more, and I had my own version of damaged loneliness to combat. He had to know that.

"You can't change what matters," he said in the tone of someone who had tried, and failed. We watched each other, neither of us able to relax or move.

"Who's to say what matters," I muttered, and finally broke his gaze. I gently reached over him, so that he could see my arm, and pulled a leaf from his hair. He let me, but watched my hand the whole time. My weariness worked in my favor, as I could only move at a tolerably slow pace. "So don't answer if you don't want to talk about it, or can't. But, how does a werewolf end up with so many scars?" I kept my tone light and reached again. He could go back to the previous subject if he wanted to, but I didn't have any other replies for now.

"Fighting," he said. I guessed that cutting the fat out of every sentence made things pretty simple to understand, but I still wanted details, if he didn't mind.

"Fighting what?" I said, my eyes flicking back to his. He watched my hand; his muscles were still tense, but his pulse had slowed.

"What have you got?" He grinned, and I caught my breath. It was getting closer to the old smile. He noticed and it faded as his brow creased, misinterpreting my breathing again. This time I chuckled darkly.

"It seems like it's not quite as easy for you to read my mind any more, Jake."

He shrugged, and a shy smile replaced the bright one. He watched my eyes and pointed to his lip. "Shark."

"What!?" I nearly leapt out of my skin. Jacob's eyebrows flew up and his grin returned, preternaturally bright. I had startled him, but his delight in shocking me overrode his body's signals to strike. So many muscles twitched I was dizzy, but then he moved his finger to the scar below his eye.

"Vampire," he said. I stared at him, inhaled, and determinedly selected another twig to pull from his hair. His hand slid down his chest. "Gunshot." My hand froze. "Vampire." His palm was spread out against the razor thin ripples criss-crossing his rib cage. Without thinking, I put my hand over his.

"Stop," I whispered. We were both very still. "You've been hunting vampires. That's what you do, in the woods." He wasn't grinning, but his face was defiant. I didn't cry, but I couldn't move my hand. "Jacob, that's suicidal," was all I could say.

Surprising me, he moved his giant hand and folded mine inside. "You taught me how to get the venom out," he whispered. I knew what he meant; the icy scar on my palm itched and twisted against the heat from his skin.

It didn't make me feel better; I knew that vampire venom was fatal to the wolves. I waited for him to continue, knowing these were too serious for him to have healed himself alone. He whispered again, the sound growing faint by the end of his brief story. "I track alone. When I find one…I bait it, if I know I can't kill it by myself. To La Push. And then I help Leah's crew destroy them."

"At the expense of your body."

"The right tool for the job," he said, grinning widely once more. His voice was so faint I was leaning towards him again. "They'd never let me die."

Something else occurred to me. "What do you mean, Leah's crew?"

"The first generation." I knew instantly what he meant—there were more wolves now; Leah must be in charge of the first group of boys brought through the horror of the change by Sam. "Sam takes the rest." He looked at me. "Leah is in charge of the fighters."

"So she knows where to find you, I guess, when there's going to be a real fight?"

"She knows _how_," he said, and left it at that. We looked at each other. I was only six inches above his face, needing to get that close to hear him. His eyes were wide, and I could tell he was forcing himself to breath deep and slow. Under the scent of blood and dirt, I recognized the other mysterious layer to his smell: the thick, purple smoke that erupted from pyres made of broken vampire limbs. I leaned back, but only a little; Edward had also been a murderer of monsters, once upon a time, and I knew Jacob—in spite of what he might tell himself—would never kill a vampire with golden eyes. It seemed that I could only want to be this close to deluded heroes.

He blinked and then his mouth opened. His brow creased slightly as he pushed the air across his vocal cords. "I'm out of words," he forced the last whisper, and smiled shyly again. I could tell he didn't mean he was ready to go.

"Only for now, though, right?" I hadn't taken my hand out of his; I let the warmth emanating from his body course through my palm, lulling me to sleep, and continued to watch him as I lowered myself on to the floor next to him. He nodded, his eyes following me until I couldn't see them any more over the horizon of his chest. I kept my hand in his while my eyes closed and the exhaustion immediately crashed over me, eradicating the more painful moments in our exchange but unable to block the force of his body's heat. I felt his mammoth frame began to shift and curl around me, never letting go of my hand, just as the long day finally faded to black.


	12. Chapter 12

I awoke alone on the floor with Emily softly saying my name and rustling through my suitcase for clean clothes. _It _had_ to be safe to assume we were friends now_, I thought, watching her rummage, and I rolled over on my back and realized that the floor was still warm. Jake had just left. I sat up.

"Did you see him? Where did he go?" I took the shirt she offered me and clutched it to my chest without looking at it.

"I didn't see him, Bella. My guess is that he headed out to save you the trouble of explaining to Charlie why a dirty, naked giant was cuddling his daughter on the floor?" She raised her eyebrows. "I'm just guessing, though, like I said…I mean, it's a _floor_," she muttered as she turned away to let me dress, "I'm just _guessing_ you weren't _actually _so tired you just passed out on your feet."

"You're way funnier than I realized," I said sarcastically, throwing my shirt back at her while she grinned. I could feel my blush creeping across my chest while I thought about Jake again, and it deepened once I looked down at myself, sitting there. I really needed a shower before I bothered putting on clean clothes. "Emily, do you think I could grab a shower before we—wait, what are we doing?"

"We're going back to La Push so you can sample some of it's fine dining options and Sam can talk to you about the kinds of things normal people only see in horror movies."

"Okay," I muttered, feeling confused. Emily understood the look on my face, and she shook her head at me. She was clearly worried about Charlie overhearing us, and I took it for granted that he was still home. I pulled myself off of the floor and Emily graciously handed me the shirt I'd hurled at her. She turned and began to unpack my suitcase, delicately arranging the few items I'd brought on the bed. I turned back to her. "Emily, please don't—I'll just feel like a jerk if you start taking care of me the way you take care of the guys." She turned and met my gaze.

"I only take care of the people I care about, and I only do what I like," she said flatly, and waved me out of the door. I stayed for just a minute longer.

"Sometimes it's really easy to tell you and Leah are cousins," I said, but softly, and her grateful smile was electrifying. I ran to the bathroom and got ready as fast as I could.

It was hard to believe I'd arrived in Forks only yesterday. I felt like the past two days had lasted longer that the two years previous, as if the enormous pressure of so much emotional weight pushing down on it had elongated each moment. My elated mood pushed my questions away, and even though I hadn't seen Charlie at the house, we hadn't brought up the purpose for our trip again. Emily played country music in the car and I laughed because I hadn't heard any since I had last ridden in the cruiser. Even passing the Newton's store and the wide, empty parking lot of the grocery made me giddy; I had hated Forks on sight but the town had changed me irrevocably, and suddenly I was glad to be back where I'd started becoming myself. Emily watched me from the corner of her eye and smirked.

"Jake always said you hated it here," she said, "but you look like we're driving through Disneyland."

"It is really nice to be here," I said. I looked at Emily and continued, knowing that she too had once lived somewhere else and chosen the sparse, wooded landscape surrounding us over what she'd loved as a child. "I feel like my childhood was split, in some ways, between Phoenix and Forks, and when I was younger I really, really loved Phoenix. But everything about Forks originated with my first adult choices—moving here when I did, away from my mom and everything I knew, was the first step. And it was painful to be here, considering…everything…" I paused. "But it's great to be back, and feel the difference inside myself."

Emily's hands moved the wheel so naturally it was almost like she was sleepwalking. "You sound so different from when we were younger, Bella." Her face was still. "You're like a different person." She raised her eyebrows. "I don't want to sound mean but—it's _nice_."

I laughed. "Was I really that bad?"

The more animated corner of her mouth turned down, making her face strangely symmetrical. "You were pretty selfish," she conceded, but then looked back at me anxiously. "From one selfish gal to another," she said, and I reassured her with a smile.

"I never think of you as selfish," I said.

"No one does, but Leah," she rebutted. "And me." She looked strait ahead.

"Maybe that's why it's okay for you to be friends with me?" I voiced the confusion about the intensity of our exchanges since my return yesterday with hesitation, not wanting to create an awkwardness that could be avoided. "Because you know how selfish I can be, it makes you feel more comfortable admitting you don't feel so hot about how things…have worked out?"

"Maybe," Emily said. "I always considered us friends, in a way. Just because of the pack. Keeping secrets is hard." She looked thoughtful. "I think, when I saw you yesterday…I just got this feeling that you were going to do the right thing. Fix things, somehow. And if you can be forgiven, maybe I can too." She almost looked on the verge of tears again, but then laughed. "Selfish to the end!"

We laughed together. "Selfish isn't the right word," I said.

"Leah prefers some other ones," Emily said, and we laughed again.

"I'm serious," I protested, once we'd stopped grinning. "I'm going to think about it, and then I'll get back to you. But selfish isn't the right word."

She shrugged. "You're the bookworm, I'll let you handle the words." Her eyes scanned the main street of La Push and I realized we were about to park. "Let me introduce you to my oldest child—The La Push Bar and Grill." We slowed and she angled herself into a small space in front of a bright, busy building. My light mood buoyed me out of the car and in the door, following Emily closely. It seemed everything moved in slow motion—there was my father, who stood and waited until I sat at his table; Billy Black raised a knowing eyebrow at me and we smiled at each other without speaking. In the background, the entire pack milled through doors to the kitchen and another bright room I took to be an extra dining room. People I hadn't seen since high school were walking by, their names escaping me, but our eyes meeting and friendly. The paintings on the walls exhibited the glorious mountains and endless sea that surrounded us; the furniture and chairs were hewn from rough pine and smoothed by countless fingertips. Two tiny children with shining black hair raced by me, and the image startled me roughly in to the present. It mysteriously reminded me of the real purpose behind my visit, and I turned to see where Emily had gone.

Charlie was speaking to me, but I hadn't heard a word. Billy just watched me watching everyone, and when he saw I was pretending to know what Charlie was talking about he interrupted.

"Jake's in the back, with Sam and everybody, Bella." He turned to Charlie and said, "give it a rest, Chief. She's here for the kids, not the fogies."

Charlie's expression darkened with a note of finality. "Never again, Bella. I'm serious about that." I knew I should've listened a little harder, but my best guess was that he was referring to last night. I looked to Billy one more time. He shrugged back.

"Okay," I said. Charlie didn't look reassured, but he gave up and waved his hand dismissively. Billy nodded, and I scampered up and wandered back to the door I'd noticed earlier in my reverie after promising to say goodbye before I left.

The room was big, but not big enough for the pack. The heat was stifling, and several smaller boys I didn't recognize were working on opening the windows, their new muscles strange looking on the smaller frame of their bodies. Emily was nowhere to be seen, but at the back of the room, furthest from the light filtering in from the rapidly opening windows, Jake sat watching me. His nose was gently wrinkling and I knew he'd probably smelled me as soon as I'd entered the restaurant. Sam saw his eyes and turned towards me, nodding. Leah leaned coolly against the far wall, refusing to sit or acknowledge my presence. I bowed my head and wove through the throng of excited boys wrestling and laughing between Jake and me. His eyes never blinked.

"Hi," I said. I was breathless from the obstacle course. A deep sigh moved out of his chest as he looked at me, and then he gestured that I move closer. I wedged myself next to him and placed my ear close by his mouth.

"I was scared you'd be angry." When I quickly jerked back to look at him, he impatiently gestured for me to move close again and continued. "I had to leave before Charlie saw and you got up, and I didn't want to move you…without asking." His eyebrows were raised in question when I pulled away to look at his face.

"I know," I said, not bothering to change the natural volume of my voice. I knew Jake could probably hear things happening on the street out front. Almost as if he were psychic, his face stilled and he looked once again towards the front of the restaurant; I peered through the tiny window in the door but didn't recognize anyone until Quil and Embry burst through the door a minute later. Suddenly the room became uncomfortably small. Without being able to help it, I was pushed against Jake; he reached past me and pushed the giant body that had shoved me against him away, and then motioned for me to lean against him. I did. Our heads were once again at almost equal heights, although he was seated and I was standing. The heat was stifling, but I didn't want to move.

The undercurrent in the room was instantly tense, and I suddenly realized that almost all of the boys had been pointedly avoiding wrestling near Jake. In fact, it was now apparent Sam was the only person comfortable being seated next to him; the large body that had knocked in to me from the other side was Seth Clearwater's. Quil and Embry were seated to Seth's right, and both of them alternated looking down at the table with occasional glances towards Jake and Sam. Leah never moved from the wall, but I watched as her eyes carefully took in the entire scenario.


	13. Chapter 13

_Leah never moved from the wall, but I watched as her eyes carefully took in the entire scenario._

_Try not to move,_ I thought to myself. _Try to not impose, to resent what you so obviously are: an unwelcome means to an end._ I felt tension radiating from Jake, and didn't know what to do; I couldn't help but press against him, as Seth was clearly engaged otherwise and not used to the presence of a mere human among the pack. I turned my head to look at Jake, and he was perfectly still, his face turned towards the table. From what I could see he had showered and slept a little, but the twigs and leaves in his hair hadn't been combed out. The shorts he wore were faded canvas, and the burrs stuck in his side last night remained. His skin flinched when I moved, and I tried to still myself, but he looked up at me. His expression was a mix of rank fear and overt self-consciousness. So much noise and activity must be making him feel like he was in hell. I spoke again, trying to sound calm. "Jake, would you mind if I got some of this stuff out of your hair?" I pushed my luck and gently laid a finger near the burrs poking obtrusively out of his skin. "How about these? Can I get them for you?"

He looked at me a moment, and then shrugged. Would this be more intimate than the way we used to snuggle in front of everybody? Less intimate than if I'd asked last night while we were alone, like I'd wanted to? I didn't know. Jake didn't move when I started working the burr out of his flesh. His skin was eerily smooth, it's rich color unmarred by layers of dirt. I found myself lingering on the texture, and realized it had been a very, very long time since I'd touched anyone. We were in the same boat, in a way, although I'd never spent my time avoiding human contact holed up in the body of a predator. Jake was looking down at the table again. Sam called the room to order and everyone was very still and quiet, except, of course, for Leah. She pointedly walked out of the room and stood just outside with the door ajar, lighting a cigarette. I knew she wouldn't miss a word, just like she'd never miss an opportunity to show Sam what she thought of his calls to order.

"We have a couple of things we need to discuss," Sam began. I still wasn't totally sure why I was here, and tried to refocus on Emily's indecipherable comments from earlier. _They could mean anything,_ I realized, gently tugging on the pointed tips of the burr and watching as the tiny thorns loosed their hold in Jacob's buttery skin. He didn't move, even when a tiny rivulet of blood seeped out as I gave it one last yank. I placed the offender on the table and went on to the next one, listening. To my surprise, Jake's muscles looked decidedly less tensed; I guessed it was another wolf thing. _In the wild, they groom each other, right?_ Maybe this felt okay for him—more okay than being pressed on, limbs and eyes and laughter crashing over him like strong, unfamiliar waves. I wanted to stroke his hair, but I kept my fingers busy working on the tiny thorns.

"First of all, as everybody obviously noticed, Jake is back." The room was instantly silent. "Maybe we didn't have the best reunion last night over at Charlie Swan's, but we can work through it." He looked like he was about to move on when Quil spoke up.

"Is he part of the pack again?" I didn't know Quil well enough to know what his tone implied. He was speaking to Sam but looking at Jake. "I want to know he's not going to do anything stupid, and to be honest, last night doesn't look too good for the whole 'not stupid' option." His shoulders were bunched up high, as if he were frozen in a shrug.

"Are you trying to say he shouldn't be _allowed _to be part of the pack?" Seth Clearwater's voice had deepened in to a man's since I last saw him, and as he leaned across Embry I saw he was now as tall and strong as any of the rest. "That's just _wrong,_ Quil."

"He didn't come back for us!" Quil was clearly hurt, and beginning to shake in spite of his efforts. "He shows up out of nowhere and starts stalking little Miss Leechlover of the Century here and almost tears all four—_five_ of us, including Leah, and still _not_ including the kids—apart. That doesn't make me feel like we should just shake hands and buddy up again." Embry's eyes never left Jake's face. Seth had smiled dazedly at me and I realized he hadn't recognized me until now, but he returned to the conflict at hand before saying hello, watching Jake for his response.

"I_ left_ for you," Jake whispered. The room was once again utterly silent. I marveled at Sam for letting them sort it out; Jake's words praising he and Leah echoed in my mind. I guessed this was better than fighting about it as wolves later. "I left to spare you my mind."

"You left because you didn't _want _us in your mind! Totally different!" This was from Embry, ordinarily the more sedate of the two. He and Quil blazed at Jake from across Seth's long body, and I realized I hadn't actually asked Jake how long it had been since he'd left the pack. This was a fight that had been spoiling for a while.

Jake finally looked back at the two of them. Unlike them, he didn't appear angry; I realized I was holding my breath and exhaled, pulling another burr out at the same time. I was right about touching him. It was soothing for him to feel my fingers grooming the madness out of his skin. "It was the best thing I could do…to keep you from hating me," Jake said nakedly. His bluntness silenced Quil and Embry, who had ceased shaking, but the words once again knocked my breath away. They were uncomfortably close to ones I'd heard just yesterday from a different supernatural loner.

Sam looked at the group. "Unlike the rest of us, Jake is free to come and go. That's just the way this works—his situation, for whatever reason, is different, and he isn't automatically bound to the pack the way we are." I respected Sam's choice to remind the group that he, although Alpha, was subject to the whim of fate the same as they were. "If he chooses to rejoin the pack, we welcome him." He looked at Jake. "But your position in the pack is the same as when you left. We're not creating some special post for you." Leah laughed, from outside. No one else did.

She stepped back inside, all legs and hair and a wicked grin that slowly dissolved as she spoke. "For the record, I asked Jake to watch _her,_" she said. "I knew that if the vamp showed up Jake could take her on his own, and the rest of us could patrol together." She shrugged. "I wasn't counting on the _other_ leech showing up." She looked at Jake. "I wasn't counting on you wanting to join us again either," she finished, and her eyes hardened, clearly wanting an explanation. In spite of her tone, I recognized her attempt at diplomacy.

"I don't want anything from you guys but patience," Jake said in his half-voice. The dispute seemed finished for now. Seth leaned back against the wall, Quil and Embry quieted, slumped on their crossed arms and shot furtive glances at one another. Clearly, a large part of the conflict was confusion regarding pack hierarchy, and what they wanted—besides Quil and Embry, who still looked hurt—was reassurance Jake wasn't angling to upset it. The army of young wolves had stayed silent this entire time, and as the tension diffused they slowly began to rustle among themselves, kicking their legs and playfully smacking each other. I worked diligently on the last stubborn burr.

Sam's voice was low. "I've asked Bella to join us because Leah and I have developed a plan." He was looking at Leah now, and I squirmed a little, thinking of Emily. Leah's hard expression hadn't changed, but her gaze was focused on Quil and Embry. They straightened up a little, and Sam continued. "I think we should take that vacation we've been talking about—well, some of us." The younger boys were staring with wide eyes at Sam. "This vampire doesn't seem like much of a threat—she's usually alone, she's wounded. But we can never quite _get_ her." His frustration was apparent in the emphasis. He turned to look at me just as I pulled the last spike from Jake's skin; the first tiny hole had already sealed itself. "Bella, we're basically going to ask you to be bait."

In the back of my mind, I knew this was the only thing they could possibly want from me. Still, it was a little stunning to hear it said out loud, and to think that the last time I was here no one would allow me to offer myself to the cause. Things had definitely changed. Sam was waiting for me to say something. "Em said you'd be up for it," he said, thinking my silence was hesitation. "And we thought--" here he looked at the mammoth beside him--"with Jake, there was no chance any harm could come to you." Jake was looking down at the table again; although he was so tall we could all see his face there was no discernable expression to tell me what he might be thinking.

"Of course," I said. I hoped Sam could tell by my face that I would agree to anything they needed to rid the world of the scourge I had introduced. Vampire grudges, theoretically, could never die. They had to be snuffed out. I wondered if Edward and Alice were tracking her as we sat here. "Has anyone been in touch with the Cullens?" I knew Jake would clench when I said the name, but I wasn't prepared for the collective intake of breath in the room. Once again everyone was staring at his large frame. I calmly picked a twig out of Jake's hair and laid it in the small pile of burrs before I continued. "They're here for the same reason. They're probably tracking her right now," I said. Seth Clearwater shrugged.

"I can talk to them," he said. Quil and Embry rolled their eyes and Leah growled. Jake's muscles were slowly unknotting, one by one, and the little wolves began to pick on one another again. Everything was okay.

"Bella, when Jake is finished with the truck I want the pair of you to head in to the woods. We're going to give you a six hour start and then follow you in—tell Charlie you'll be camping or something, that's basically true. We'll figure out where to sleep later." He looked around him. "I'm going to take you guys with me. Leah, Seth, Jared and Paul are going to guard La Push, but I want Quil and Embry to come with me." The pair looked around like they hadn't heard him, but of course they would do whatever he said. "I'm expecting her to try to take advantage of your distance from La Push. She's very persistent," he said, his brows furrowed, "so we want to give her something that feels like a genuine shot." He nodded at Jake. "She can't possibly know how many vamps Jake here has killed by himself."

I looked at Jake's face again. How many could that realistically be? Vampires were the end of the evolutionary ladder—the fastest, the strongest, the most dangerous. But here he was with the scars to prove it; _the right tool for the job,_ he'd said. I wondered if he'd been trying to die, and if he was, whether he'd given it up for a place in the pack. _And maybe, _I let myself drift, _a place with me._

It looked like we would have a nice long road trip to figure it out.


	14. Chapter 14

AN: I would like to once again thank all of the reviewers for their enthusiasm and support! It is wonderful to read your words. To clarify—I'm not sure how long this story will be, I'll just write till its done; the conversation with Charlie in the restaurant was basically a reiteration of his words the night previous; I will keep posting as soon as they are ready, which so far is roughly 2000 words a day. Thank you, thank you, thank you again to all of you 

*****

_It looked like we would have a nice long road trip to figure it out._

Charlie hadn't recognized Jake. He had watched the two of us leave the back room and an unfamiliar darkness crushed the light out of his smile, until Billy noticed and nodded towards his son. It had taken some private convincing to ease Charlie into the idea of a camping trip with my old friend; redirection had helped as much as anything else. Charlie never enjoyed emotional discourse so I used that to my advantage as well, and even though my intentions in this case clearly and firmly for the greater good, I still felt a small wave of guilt as I saw his will weakening.

"I'm thinking of sticking around for a while, Dad," I said. "We're going to have lots of nights to fight about how I spend my time." He looked at me, plaintively hoping, and shook it off as he went up the stairs. His sober footsteps echoed across the floor above me and I hoped Victoria wouldn't make a liar out of me.

I called Edward as soon as Charlie was safely snoring above me. He answered immediately and I could tell by his tone that he already knew everything I was going to say. I looked warily out of the windows around my house and wondered how he'd managed to sneak past the wolves. He sighed.

"Seth Clearwater is a wonderful person," he said by means of explanation.

"And apparently kind of a big mouth," I retorted. I didn't want Edward's mind swimming with images of Jake and I any more than I wanted to dwell on Jake's suffering over my vampire laden past.

"Do you believe Jacob Black's intentions are…romantic?" I could feel the soothing tendrils of his voice creeping through my subconscious, and shook them off. It was harder to remember the many reasons why he and I were no longer without his boyish appearance to remind me.

"I'm not totally sure he has intentions of _any_ kind any more." I heard myself sounding wistful, and I realized that Edward didn't need to hear more, for many reasons. One of them was that telling Edward that Jake's impulse control was somewhat less than human would not quiet the terror I had seen so plainly in his eyes when he left last night. I realized Jake's mind must be much more difficult for Edward to read now; his relationship to language having deteriorated, it appeared Edward was lacking his usual insight. Then again, maybe not.

"With a woman like yourself, Bella, no man has ever lacked intentions." It was open ended. He was reminding me that not all of them had been honorable.

I smiled. "When I left Forks I stopped inspiring the kind of attention that used to bring me so much trouble, Edward. I am now hopelessly ordinary." I felt sad, but reminded myself that ordinary was okay. The whole rest of the human race was ordinary.

"You will never be ordinary, Bella," breathed Edward. He was happy to speak to me, to engage in a dialogue, even if it involved Jake. I realized that a friendship, however tenuous, might still be possible between us. I realized it as surely as I knew I could never bring my twenty five year old body to desire a seventeen year olds.

"I suppose not," I mused. "What's a girl to do with so much supernatural romance?" We both laughed a little. "Seriously, though…I appreciate your…companionship, Edward."

"I will be whatever it is I can be to you, Bella," he said, and I could tell from his voice he was smiling. "I know I mentioned this to you once, long ago, but perhaps you have forgotten…once changed, never changed again. So it goes with our kind."

I remembered. "What if I have half-wolf babies with a certain former rival of yours, Edward?" He was quiet, but I found I wanted to know. "What if I never marry anyone, and spend my life collecting cats and bad art?"

He sighed. "I'd probably make a horrifying babysitter. It makes me so nervous to see the vulnerable in any danger…and Alice, of course, would never allow you to collect _bad_ art." I laughed out loud, hearing the smile in his words. "But Bella…all I can want for you is happiness. I won't be swayed from it."

"You're such a geek, Edward," I said, and I knew he could tell that I was smiling.

"Don't be so coy," he chuckled. "Having two of the most dangerous men on earth fawning over you must at least occasionally feel good."

My smile faded. "It's how they fawn," I said. "What their motives might be…What mine are. I want honest fawning," I said, trying to end lightly.

"You may have to resign yourself to being loved, which is much more complex," whispered Edward. "But surely not so bad, among one's options in life."

"You know that I love you too, Edward?" It was suddenly important that he did know. I mean, he'd just mentioned baby-sitting. For Jake and I's fictional children.

"I know." The gentleness in his voice was forgiving, complete. "I am afraid that the only way we will continue to disappoint each other is if we forget." He paused. "Bella, I should tell you, I've thought a great deal about what you said."

_Respect my choices_, I thought. "And?"

"And I believe we may both be right," he finished. "We may have to leave it at that."

"If that's the final verdict we can agree to disagree," I said. I hadn't really expected him to ever agree with me; it was gratifying to know my irrational humanity was at least being carefully considered.

"I want to be as much a part of what you decide to be and do as I can, Bella," he said. "I want to somehow…_see _the happiness…I bet both of our lives on." The words were smooth, but I caught the undercurrent of grief. He had waited this long to try and let me rebuild. Alice must know we would be okay.

"Of course, Edward," I whispered. I knew it was time to go.

"Goodnight, Bella," he whispered back, and the line went dead.

Jake was waiting by my truck the next afternoon. Charlie insisted on walking me out, where he squared himself and took in Jake's scars and stooped posture before grunting his assent. Jake looked down at him.

"Charlie…" his voice wavered. He was so unlike the boy that had ricocheted around my life, my childhood. His voice was getting a little stronger now, but it was with obvious effort that he addressed my father. He straightened up, standing tall, and looked down at Charlie. "I promise we're just going to hike, and fish."

Here, of course, Charlie's eyebrows shot up. Jake laughed.

"Okay," beamed Jake, shaking his head and resolving to try again. I found I was holding my breath, taking in his smile. It shattered the rest of the ominous image—the stoop, the awkward outfit, his strangely bare feet. His ridiculously long nails. "_I'll_ be fishing. She'll be reminding me why we were friends in high school. Hopefully."

Charlie seemed appeased by the smile too. The mischief surrounding the corners of his mouth was infectious as he chuckled at the pair of us. "Maybe some things never do change," he said, and turned his back on us. It was the closest to a blessing we were going to get. I wondered how Sam knew that Charlie would be so easy to win over, especially when Quil and Embry had held on to their grudge; maybe Sam knew more about the friendships of men than I did. Quite likely. We got in the truck.

"Sorry I can't drive, Bells," Jake murmured, and it took me a moment to turn the key. _Bells._ He went on. "I haven't driven a car in about six years." My elation faded abruptly.

"You gave up cars?" _You moved to the woods to become Van friggin Helsing and gave up everything you loved?_

"Not really—" He backpedaled, looking self-conscious again and somehow finding a way to squirm and not jostle me. "I still repair them. Still got the old garage over at my dad's, chock full of cars." He sounded amazingly human today. "Spend all my free time with them. Really." He was smiling again, sitting on his hands, watching my face. I smiled back at him.

"You sound a lot more like your old self again, Jake." I kept my eyes on the road, focusing on finding the highway leading out of town and into unknown territory. Even with my shaky memory, I could point us in the direction Sam had requested. My stomach was still, my breath calm and sure. If Victoria died at the end of this, I would feel gratified; truthfully, between the peace I felt about Edward and I, and having Jake's smile so close to full throttle, I felt pretty gratified already. As if to challenge me, the sky opened and misty rain swept the blue away like a broom. I laughed. Nothing could dampen my mood.

"I got a lot of practice in, between Billy and the pack this weekend," he said. He had taken my meaning literally, as if he'd heard my thoughts about how human he sounded. "They must have really missed me," he said very quietly, and looked out at the rain, rolling up the window until only a two-inch crack showed at the top. I knew he was only doing it out of courtesy for my human temperature. The cab instantly began to heat up.


	15. Chapter 15

_The cab instantly began to heat up._

We were quiet for a moment, the trees soaring by, blurred by the increasingly heavy rain. My windshield wipers had been changed—thank you, Mr. Black--and they silently whisked away droplets in time with each second that passed. "Who wouldn't miss you?" I asked, but it wasn't a real question, and we both knew it.

"I don't know, Bells," he said in his low voice. "I never thought I'd see you again." I realized he was looking at me and not the endless trees or the slate sky, not tasting the tiny drops of rain spattering against the side of his face. I didn't turn my head because I didn't know what to say. We were quiet for another long while, the trees ticking by.

"Maybe you should outline some of the details of this plan for me," I said. _Push it away,_ Bella. It was all I could do to smother the string of questions I had for Jake, now that he sounded more like a person and less like a ghost. My image of him from two nights ago haunted me once again, flashing his wicked grin across the windshield. It was hard to reconcile the two as the same person now that I could hear Jacob's humanity in each of his carefully chosen sentences.

"Well…" Jake inhaled and looked away. His head was bowed, his large body uncomfortably stuffed in to the cab; the truck was huge, but it was clearly only just able to hold him. I felt the wheel pulling to the right as his side of the truck dipped low. He looked back at me, his hands folded awkwardly in front of him. He was trying to sit like a man. "Leah and Sam chased her while you were still here, before you left for Phoenix…" His brow wrinkled. "I think she just disappeared once you left…never came back. When she attacked you again, I think everybody took it as a sign…that we could finally get her." He smiled shyly down at his large hands. "She's the only one."

"It's weird that she just vanished after I was gone—she never showed up in Phoenix." Of course we both knew that if she had we wouldn't be talking. It was strange to think she held the key to my connection to Jake; if she hadn't attacked at the border, would I have ever seen him again? "It's so strange she found me sleeping in my truck, heading back here."

"I'm glad in a way…even if that's twisted," Jake said, answering my thoughts. He had turned his face to the window, and the wind blew his words back to me. "I owe her one." His eyes were closed, and I knew he had been thinking exactly the same thing I had.

"I guess I do too," I said, and I let the smile show in my voice. Jacob's dark eyes flew open and he looked back at me. I realized he had been smelling the wind coming in from the crack in his window, his mind reading the scents there like the pages of a book. His expression was unfathomable, and when he spoke he leaned close to me again, and I knew without seeing it that he was checking my scent for emotions.

"Bella…" He sharply leaned away again, and I exhaled. "I don't understand when you say…things that make me think…you are happy to see me." I realized I'd upset him; his muscles ground against each other as he hugged his body in. His arms gripped the seat. He was fighting the wolf; his mouth twisted and he closed his eyes: "It _confuses_ me." Just as the leather gave way under his hand, he rumbled, "_it hurts me_." His eyelids were tightly shut over his spinning eyes, his breath coming slow and deep. "I can't tell you how strange I feel…"

It wasn't my right to cry as I listened to him sort through the mess in his brain, but the tears were unstoppable. I rolled my window all the way down, letting the rain in to the cab, pelting my hot face, letting some of the steam his flesh induced collide with the cool air. "Do you want to talk about this?" My voice sounded desperate—I kept trying to change the subject, keep things easy…maybe he didn't want to keep things easy. Maybe he needed to hear the things I kept avoiding. I kept my eyes on the road, forcing them open, forcing words and breath from my chest. "Do you really want me to tell you? There's no way I can know whether or not I'm going to hurt you more Jake, and I'll be damned if I want to do that."

"Don't _pity_ me!" His breath blew away in shaky howl. I shook my head, feeling the suffering emanating from him, shivering from fear. The truck was swerving; I tried to right myself, watching him with my peripheral vision and feeling my heart race. Everything was loud—the rain, my heart, and Jake. Jacob, no longer sitting like a man. No longer completely a man.

"Don't ignore what I'm trying to say," I said, sounding braver than I felt.

"_Tell me_," he growled. The wind had fooled me—Jake was once again inches away from me, my vision skewed by the rain and panic and his heat blown away by the mist. This was the moment everyone thought had passed--if I said the wrong thing, I knew I would die. I took one last deep breath and knew I couldn't let it affect the truth.

"I love you," I whispered. I felt him beginning to phase before I saw his hand slam the door handle, his body flying backwards into the dark as he hurled himself from the truck. He flew out in to the rain and was gone. The truck was going over seventy.

I yanked the wheel to the right and slammed on the brakes, screaming his name before I could even think it. "_Jake!"_ It disappeared in to the wind, the brakes squealing and the truck skidding to an rough halt off the side of the highway; I dashed out of it without bothering to look behind me and ran back towards the way we'd come. The rain was coming down, filling my face with the cold, wet dark, smashing my tears in to my open mouth. _"JAKE!"_ I howled and pulled my hair, running along the dark, empty road and screaming at the endless trees. Everything was silent save the cutting rain and my hysterical voice—the sound carried out and over everything, changing the shape of the world in front of me. I was a child again—it had all been an illusion, the peace I felt; I had shattered Jacob Black beyond repair.

And then she was there. I froze, staring.

Victoria didn't bother to hurry towards me. She sauntered down the center of the highway, seemingly from nowhere, as if she had flown. I began to scramble backwards towards the woods instinctively--the black trees behind her fluid white and red from made it seem like she was crackling, electric hallucination, but I knew that in the long nightmare of my life, she was as real as it gets. She was more real than my happiness earlier that day, my carefree peace. Her long hair whipped violently around her angled features, her gait favored her injured leg. I knew she didn't expect to have to run far, and no matter how lopsided her limbs, how weak she was, she was still more than strong enough to kill me.


	16. Chapter 16

AN: Thank you again a thousand times to all the reviewers. I can't say it enough. However, I must warn you: Carnage ahead. Please don't read if it will upset you.

*****

_I knew she didn't expect to have to run far. _

"What a shame," she purred. Her liquid voice cut through the wind towards me like a knife. "I thought you belonged to the Cullen boy….to the little traitor-beast that slayed my James." Her head cocked, the red inside of her eyes widening as her pupil suddenly constricted. "I have watched you for years….and I never knew you to be such a _whore,_ Isabella." She smiled, and her walk suddenly quickened. The black branches stabbed my back, blocking my way, and my eyes couldn't leave her approach. I was hypnotized--hell walked towards me on two thin legs. "I'll try to enjoy this anyway….maybe I'll save your shirt, all slathered in the dog's smell, and give it to the little Cullen beast." She was less than ten feet away. "He'll probably suck the blood right out of it," she whispered, and then—she was gone.

The wolf knocked her down on the highway with such force she skipped like a stone across the asphalt, ripping deep gulches each time she hit. Jake was after her bouncing body like a streak of rust-red lightning. He towered over her—he was the size of the truck. _The truck. _I turned and ran towards it as fast as I could, the interior light beaming brightly and the doors hanging open. That's when I saw them.

There were more vampires in the trees. Wisps of white—hands, feet, teeth--running parallel but _away_ from me…and _towards Jake_. I screamed his name again, knowing he would hear, not knowing if it would help. _I had to help him._ I ran to the truck, feeling my lungs bursting with sounds. Exhaustion and panic coupled with my weak, painfully human body, dragging the world in to slow motion. Stars flew behind my eyes—_this is not the time,_ I hushed myself. My legs weighed a thousand pounds as I pulled myself in to the truck and slammed the door, simultaneously mashing my heavy foot on the gas pedal and turning the key. The truck roared to life and I pulled the wheel in a hard left, swinging my truck around to face the white bodies swelling in my rearview mirror.

There were seven of them. Five flew towards Jake, two more were slightly behind and arcing out. From this distance all I could do was count the diamond white limbs as I barreled towards Jake; Victoria's flaming hair lit up the ground near his feet. As the truck approached I saw him look up, his ears flattened against his skull as he prepared to jump, teeth bared.

_Trust me, Jake,_ I thought. And I slammed on the brake.

His body soared over my truck as he jumped. I pulled the wheel with all of my strength and felt my truck clutch and grab Victoria's body with my tires, the earth screaming apart beneath us; the friction pulled up more highway and sealed her underneath the truck. We lurched to a halt, and I didn't even wait for the engine to stop before my mind raced towards a plan. Mania seized me as I dug through the glove box frantically—where was it where was it where was it—_Jane's lighter, Janie always smoked a cigarette before second shift, I gave Janie a ride the last time I worked_—where is it where is it where is it—_there!_ I jumped out of the truck and ran back towards Victoria's twisted leg, twitching beneath my tire.

I couldn't let her touch me, I told myself, my hands flicking the lighter in the rain. _This had to work._ If one of her hands could reach me, I would die. I couldn't let her touch me, but I could do this.

I ripped the sleeve off of my shirt and roughly stuffed it in the opening of the gas tank, her lilting voice pricking at my subconscious as she chanted at me nonstop in the rain—_you're always the bait, aren't you, Isabella, bait for all the monsters to play with, do you think if you kill me Cullen won't know what you are, do you think I care if I die, we mate for life, Isabella, we mate for life, when you die do you think Cullen will be waiting for you like James waits for me, now that he knows you're a_—and then it was lit. I looked down at her face, the skin peeled back from her white teeth in a hideous grimace, one of her red eyes skimming her cheekbone, all of her beauty gone.

I ran. I ran into the woods and I didn't look back.

Until I heard the sound—a sound like worlds splitting, my teeth grinding against one another and my heart exploding into a marathon against my ribs. I turned slowly back to the highway. The wolf, slick and wet and vicious teeth, ripping; two vampires baiting him, their bodies strangely misshapen, lopsided; two more vampires wrestling roughly near the crater that was my ruined truck; blurred white limbs in the background, faster and faster, spinning towards the center, towards the husk that sat on Victoria. What was once Victoria. Nightmares, in real life.

The vampires—the pair that was wrestling—I separated them, pulling their faces apart from one another in my mind…their movements were so fast it was almost impossible to…to tell…but I suddenly knew. _It was Edward_. As I said his name out loud the head of his opponent rolled across the ground like a grotesque bowling ball. The remains of the body were broken down to nothing, tossed carelessly in the smoking rubble and Edward found another fight in almost the same second. His next opponent was even weaker; Alice's flashing body stopped in what seemed like midair and ripped its arm off with a fierce crack while Edward beheaded them. My hands involuntarily crept up over my eyes, but I quickly pulled them down—where was Jake?

The wolf was staggering, the vampire in front of it shrieking, laughing maddeningly. Like Victoria had. Was it saying the same filthy things to him, cursing him? It didn't matter. I watched as Jacob slaughtered it, rending its body in half and slinging the parts into the incineration like so much dust. He was weakening, but his long teeth snaked into the flesh of the creature clinging to Edward like stones through butter, and then he danced away as Edward ripped it apart. I saw their eyes meet in the same instant that I felt myself become locked in a frozen cage. I prayed I was dreaming, as if I were a child—her voice interrupted me, ripping me back to lucidity, and I immediately began to hyperventilate. Its arms tightened.

"You are unique, human," a voice hummed in my ear. Like a wicked harmony to the mayhem we watched, it thrummed gently at me as I realized I was immobile in its vise-like grasp. It hadn't taken any effort to capture me; it was silent, granite strong. I was the only human in miles.

"I don't know what you mean," I said in spite of my fear. I knew it could smell my adrenaline, the slick sweat suddenly covering me in the cool rain as it pressed me effortlessly against its hard body. I could struggle but never be free, I could hide nothing from it…but I was suddenly proud of my efforts. If I was going to die, I didn't want to do it like a coward. My breath slowed. _It's good to like yourself,_ I thought, _especially when you have no more time to change anything._ The cold seeped through me as I watched the men I loved; they knew how I felt, how I wanted to make things right. _That was the best I could do._

"Unique among mortals, to belong not to one, not _two_, but three separate worlds." It was cooing. Its hands were white, long fingered; I could not guess its gender from the music of its voice—no face, only taunting words. "She said you were a strange one, loved by a vampire, _and_ the hunter's mate." I heard it almost sigh, and the air whistled as it suddenly whipped me around to face it. "I promise to savor you," she whispered, her perfect face drawing closer to mine as her blistering red mouth pulling down into a snarl, "which is more than he did for _mine_." I closed my eyes when I could smell her sickly sweet breath blowing on my face.

But then—a chilling blast, choking dust—she was gone. Only Alice remained, prying stiff fingers from my crushed arms. I couldn't understand her—deafness. Nightmares. Death. But she gently persisted, the white dream, and I focused on her moving lips, and begged myself to listen.

"Bella, please—come quick," she was saying, and then saw I couldn't and picked me up and ran. My eyes watered; it was just a moment, the scene ahead rushing at us at warp speed…everything was eerily silent except for the low crackle of the fire, and then I realized we were standing over the Jacob wolf. Edward kneeled next to the hulk, his pale hands lost in the fur of its leg and his terrified eyes turned up to us, gold steeled with sadness.

"I don't know what to do," he said. I stumbled out of Alice's hands, falling next to the giant body. It's chest rose and fell with shuddering breaths; one leg twitched feebly.

"We have to suck the venom out," I said, and I looked in to Edward's eyes and saw there that he would help me, would do_ anything_, to erase whatever he saw on my face. "It's going to kill him," I whispered, and then I crawled to the wolf's massive head, the tongue dry and the teeth longer than my hands. "Jake, please phase." My tears fell on his face and thick fur repelled them like dew drops until the rain carried them away. His eyes whirled wildly, locked with mine, and then closed.

I held Jake in my arms, his long smooth body plastered with bracken and blood. Edward swiftly handed me the smooth arm that had been twitching and then delicately sniffed another wound on Jacob's long leg before moving it towards his mouth. We searched each other's eyes as we locked our mouths onto the raw, bloody skin.


	17. Chapter 17

"It's a miracle," breathed Sam. "It's impossible."

It wasn't impossible; Edward was able to tell when all the venom was gone with his delicate sense of smell, and he primly handed a wound to me once he had gotten the majority of the other vampire's venom out. My job was to clean Edward's out of the wound. Jacob was bitten seven times, never deeply; none of the poison was able to get to his heart before we were.

Now the problem was different: so much blood was lost from his body that Jacob could not walk or talk. He panted weakly; he tried to drink from a puddle in human form. Edward gently picked his weighty mass off of the gritty earth, arranging him over his shoulder so that the long black hair dragged on the ground, and carried him to the cabin we had been planning to use. He disappeared through the trees, covering the long distance in a fraction of the time a vehicle would have taken. Alice promised to let me follow as soon as she covered the cleaning detail with Sam.

"Nice job, guys, _jeeeez_. You could smell the explosion all the way in La Push," sneered Quil, but his eyes scoured the damage with something more resembling envy than disdain. The bodies needed proper piling, proper burning. The truck needed to disappear. The craters where Victoria's body had ploughed through the asphalt would just have to stay where they were.

Wait…"My _truck_," I groaned to Alice. My beloved truck, my home away from home, demolished.

"I know, sweetie," she said, and immediately turned back to Sam. Alice's interest in vintage had never extended to vehicles.

"You could at least _pretend_ to be sorry," I called, and hugged myself. My fingers explored the bruises along my arms, and my eyes wandered across the wreckage before returning to Sam and Alice. The careful distance between them grew smaller as their words grew more intense. The young wolves I'd seen at Emily's stood surveying the damage in a tight group nearby. I heard them whispering as we watched the fire.

"There's another one," a thin boy murmured and pointed.

"Gross," responded another reed-like boy, but a third, taller and wider than the other two, began to move forward. He grabbed something just beyond my vision and threw it in the bed of the truck. _An arm_. Dainty and diamond white, it landed with a sound like clanging iron.

"We should probably just move them all in there," he said, and reached for another one. The second boy stayed where he was, but the first began to walk hesitantly forward, his nose wrinkling. Three more boys, smaller than any of the others, chased each other with broken, vaguely human pieces until Sam saw them and gruffly commanded they begin the pile. They would transport the entire truck and all of the vampire remains. They would destroy everything before the inevitable police presence arrived.

"Charlie—" I began, but Alice flew to my side and hushed me.

"Don't worry honey, _that_ is why they are moving the truck." She winked at me and then turned to survey the damage around us. It wiped the smile from her lips. "There's nothing we can do about the road, Bella. We'll have to find you a phone so you can let him know you're okay." She checked her pockets and looked at me apologetically. "Edward probably has his cell," she said, and then looked over at Sam.

"I think there's one in the cabin," Sam said, and then nodded to her, as if he had heard a question spoken too low for my hearing.

"Are you ready to go?" She was looking at me again, one of her thin arms already finding its way around my shoulders.

"Yes," I said. As she moved to take me fully in her arms Embry stepped forward, his head down.

"Is he really alright?" His eyebrows were pulled low, his hands stuck in his pockets.

"I promise," I said, and I walked over to him. "It would probably mean a lot to him if you guys still came out—you're going to, right?"

Embry looked down at me and then back to Sam, who nodded. "We're going to clean up here," Sam said, "and then maybe Quil and Embry can come out and check on you guys. You're going to have to get back to Forks somehow."

I groaned again, and this time Embry actually smiled. Quil punched his shoulder.

"Let's show these whippersnappers how to build a bonfire," he said, and they both glanced at me with a hesitant smile in their eyes before running over to the three littlest ones and picking them up as if they weighed nothing. "We're using you as kindling," Quil began, and then I heard Alice speaking softly to the second tall, thin boy in a sweet voice. I hadn't even realized she'd left my side.

"Be careful with the heads," she said, and picked a singed, round object up between her tiny hands. "The teeth are still quite dangerous." She handed it to him just as she realized I was watching, and her beautifully flawless smile was also hesitant as she flashed it at him and approached me. "You look like you've seen enough carnage for one day," she said, and I nodded and felt the delicious chill of her arms finally encircle me, cooling my bruised skin. "Let's go," she said softly, and we moved away from the flames as quietly and swiftly as if the wind carried us.

Charlie had asked me about my truck as soon as I confirmed that I was, in fact, alive, and I stumbled through some nonsense before he started in on the news story he'd just seen, big holes in the road, the locals were talking UFOs, but still… "Just glad to hear your voice, Bella," he finished, and I knew we would be okay until I got back. I managed to wrangle another day out of our trip, saying the first had really been too rainy to do much besides sit around in the cabin. Billy's voice was majestically removed over the phone; in person I'm sure his raised eyebrows would've caught me, but as it stood all my absurd sounding half-truths were benignly accepted.

Edward was so gracious it ached. Alice had gently laid her hand on his shoulder, her lips pressed tightly together, and lead him away, our fingers parting last and my hands still reaching out while he walked away. I stood in the doorway to the cabin for a long time after their retreat. The raw pulp in my chest burned, but I found I had no tears left. After horror upon horror, and the desperately strange and terrible end to the day, I was nothing; after having my mended, tender peace handed back to me in the night, I was nothing. There were no tears.

My feet pushed my body back indoors, and I found my eyes had adjusted to the ghostly light from the stars; the rain had stopped once it had turned the nightmare on the highway into a smoking rubble, instead of the flaming disaster it had been for the few moments after the explosion—my explosion. _"You were incredible, Bella,"_ Edward had said, and I knew I had finally done something right, something to help the cause, instead of simply instigating more conflicts. I thought dully of the truck again, and realized even that wistfulness could wait until tomorrow. For now, it was all I could do to turn the key in the lock and stumble to the narrow bed where Jake was sprawled.

He looked human; in fact, he looked very much like a boy I once knew. The bed was much too small for him, and his long brown limbs hung over the edge. My fingers disobeyed me and reached for him, lightly tracing over the skin knitting itself back together; new scars for the new Jacob. My body continued to prove unruly and moved to the window, pulling the blinds wide open and letting the gentle, clinging starlight sweep across him. The blankets were tossed on the floor, his tangled hair was everywhere—across his face, striping the pillow and his chest, which rose and fell lightly. Edward had brought him glass after glass of water until Jake smashed it against the wall and asked for a bucket. The outburst seemed to calm him, but not as much as the bucket did. His blood pressure was still too low; I'd been instructed to bring more water as needed, but now I worried about falling asleep myself. I swayed on my feet.

After I found, filled and dragged a colander across the floor, swearing all the way, I pulled the blanket from the floor and wrapped it around myself. I lay down, knowing the knotted pine floor wouldn't keep me from sleep. As I felt myself beginning to drift, I heard the springs shift and creak as Jake rolled over on the mattress.


	18. Chapter 18

_As I felt myself beginning to drift, I heard the springs shift and creak as Jake rolled over on the mattress. _

"Vampire slayers don't sleep on the floor, Bella," he whispered. "Silly girl." His long arm found the blanket and tugged at it. I smiled, my eyes closed.

"They do when there's nowhere else to lay down," I said. The one room cabin hadn't had a phone, or much of anything else; I wondered if Sam had been here before. There was no way it would fit four werewolves and a human overnight, no matter how small the latter may have been. The tiny cook-stove and sink were the only modern accommodations, running water being the major selling point. A tiny bathroom and a wrap around porch were the only other features worth mentioning.

"You could sleep up here," he murmured, his hand growing still. "I thought you knew by now I wasn't going to eat you." I sat up, finding his eyes glinting in the dim light, and rested my head on my arms along the edge of the bed. His long arm barely brushed against me as we faced each other. _Please let me touch you._ Still the wrong thing to say. I laughed quietly at myself and tried to cover my tracks.

"That's not a line that gets a girl _in_ to bed, Jake--maybe just make her run screaming instead," I said, smirking. His mouth dropped open a little and I laughed out loud at the shock on his face. "Goodnight," I said, laying back down. "I want that look on your face to be the last thing I see before I fall asleep."

Things were quiet for a moment, but then I heard the springs again. My eyes flew open and I sat up just in time to see Jake, naked and bitten, swing his legs over the side and push the bed back against the wall. He lay down next to me, close but not touching, and this time I knew _my_ mouth was hanging open. I snapped it shut and lay down in a huff, my back to him. He laughed; not loudly, not with his full body, but still…it was so familiar…My body ignored me again and rolled over to face him. We were both smiling.

"What kind of line _does_ get a girl in to bed, Bella?" he whispered. In spite of the momentary boldness, his eyes looked a little anxious. I suddenly felt nervous too, and dropped my eyes to look once again at the raised flesh of his wounds.

"You tell me," I tried, and looked up at him again. My smile was weak.

"I don't know," he said, and I suddenly understood why he looked anxious. Years in the woods, alone…His eyebrows lowered as he watched me, and I realized he was probably thinking the worst.

"I don't know either, Jake," I told him, and we watched each other.

"Really?" He looked skeptical, but curiosity crept in to his eyes. They held me steadily, as if he had learned in the past two days how to master their movement. Their constant roaming had unnerved me the first night we were together, but that feeling was nothing compared to the fear beginning to clutch at my guts. I was a twenty five year old virgin, with no woodsy excuses.

I sighed and closed my eyes. "Really." I knew without his asking that an explanation was going to be necessary. "I never wanted to…I _wanted_ to want to, if that makes any sense…but I never did."

"Why not?" His warm breath rolled over my face.

I thought of the split second in the car before he had flown away through the open door, before it had seemed that the whole world was ending. He knew; I had told him a thousand times in a thousand ways since I'd heard his strangled voice scream my name from the edge of my father's front lawn. _I love you._ For whatever reason, he refused to acknowledge it.

"I've only loved two people, and neither was available to try." I opened my eyes and rolled on to my stomach, raising my head so that I was looking down on his face. He still looked skeptical. Fine then. "If you want to know why they weren't around, I'll give you their names and you can call and ask them in the morning." I artfully swung my hair over his face and rolled over with my back towards him once more.

He didn't move and I once again drifted towards sleep; he interrupted me just as I was replaying his shocked face. His voice was close to my ear. "Do I know them?" I thought for a minute he must be joking, but he continued. "Well, do I know _him?_ I know…Edward." I couldn't help it; I rolled over again. Our faces were inches apart, and even in the half-light, I could see a strange wetness in his eyes. "I'm just curious," he protested, as if he thought I would object.

I shook my head. My hair mixed with his, and I inhaled the scent of his breath; I felt the heat radiating off of him and moved as close as I could, testing the boundary. I realized that my movement had stilled his chest, and then I saw his steady pulse thrumming in the soft dip of his collarbone. He was holding his breath. "You know him," I whispered.

And then I kissed him.


	19. Chapter 19

AN: Yall, remember this is rated T, which I am basically basing on Meyer's books…emotronic gushery ahead. On the other hand, I am very grateful for all of the reviews, which I've become a little addicted to, and also thankful for the wonderful stories so many of you write! Thank you many times over for sharing both your talent and your time.

*****

_And then I kissed him._

Jake was still, at first, his eyes blinking wide with recognition as our mouths collided—he felt me moving across him, kisses as fine as a spider's web woven across his face, my eyelashes and nose and mouth touching his cheekbone, eyelid, forehead and lips in turn. I couldn't stop myself--_Wait!_ Panic and confusion blasted through the dim heat swarming over me. My hands propped my body above his, and suddenly my exhaustion pulled me down towards the floor, shocking me in to recognition…I didn't understand myself. Hadn't I promised myself to let Jake decide what to do? I pulled my body up, sat clumsily and shook the smooth feel of his skin from my mind.

"Sorry," I said. That was when he began to move.

He was not strong the way he could be, but what remained was still inhuman. He abruptly sat up and cradled me against him in the same movement. I was perched sideways against his chest, and I could feel his arms, all of their loneliness bare, crushing me to him. I felt his hands—awkward, long fingered and rough—catching my hair, turning me to face him. "It was impossible to believe…after everything…" He began, the honey in his rumbling voice intoxicating, but I interrupted him before I lost my way again.

"You need to understand some things, Jake," I whispered, and he pulled back a little bit, his breath caught. I didn't want to take away this moment; I wanted to leave it for later, to focus again on the heat of his pulse and the differing textures of his skin beneath my lips, but I couldn't. That was the Bella I didn't want to be—one who considered her own selfish desires before anything else, and called them kindness. I looked up at him. "I was serious when I said I wasn't the same person."

His right hand pushed my hair off of my face while his left slid beneath my legs and repositioned me so that I was sitting between his knees, facing his chest. "How so?" He whispered, but his voice carried and echoed around the tiny room. He let go and watched me; I could barely see the outline of his face in the starlight. A sad smile appeared in the shadows there. "Maybe it sounds dumb, but you couldn't be, Bella. Not so many years later…and not doing what you just did." He rubbed his eyes. "I wish I was still the same cocky kid that thought you were just catching up on what I already knew, but I'm not the same person either." He leaned towards me once again, though, and asked: "But just so I understand…what do you mean, when you say that?"

It touched me that he wanted to know. It would be so easy to write me off, I thought, as someone predestined to torment him; would I have been so understanding, if our positions were reversed? I'd like to think so, but my only relative experience was my obsession with Edward, something that suddenly seemed dissimilar to the years of pain Jake had gone through. Which brought me back to the uncomfortable point at hand. "I don't know—I don't know if you can feel the same way about me, not _knowing_ me now. I just don't want us to rush, and then…I'm afraid you will regret not getting to know me."

"You're afraid I'm still in love with someone that doesn't exist any more?" His smile was a little predatory again, but only shades of the bitterness I'd seen that first night appeared. He shook his head and raised his hands up and behind his head, the pale light creating deep shadows along his ribs. "Of course I am," he said, and laughed. "And there's not much either of us can do about it."

"Then we should be friends," I said. The disappointment registered in my voice; Jake lowered his arms and leaned towards me again. I resisted the lure of his arms. "Jake, I have waited a long time…and thought really hard about everything. And I came back here to try to—to try and make things right. And believe me, I know how silly that sounds." I let the tears come, but I didn't let them overtake me. I was surprised, considering everything that had happened that day, that _now_ was when they appeared, but it made a perverse sort of sense.

"It's not your job to make things right," Jake said. His tone was warm, achingly sweet. When I leaned away he leaned forward, his long arms gently wrapping around my body and pulling me towards him. "I was a stupid kid too…I kept ignoring what everyone else knew, and then I told you not to talk to me any more." He held me tightly, my body curled up in a ball against his massive frame. "I was no better than him." It suddenly occurred to me that the target of much of his bitterness was Jake himself, and I forcibly tore my head away and looked in to his face.

"You reacted exactly the way anybody should when they find out someone has been using them." He let me go. My words and voice were hard, punishing. I smeared my tears away with my fist and continued. "_I _was the worst kind of vampire, Jake. I'm not sure you _know_ me well enough to love me now, and I don't really understand how you can stand to speak to me—"

"—I love you, Bella." He said it plainly. His hands found mine in the dark and kept them from my face, gently covering them, his thumbs rubbing wide circles across my palms. "And from what I've seen, I only love you _more_ now. Now that you're determined to get rid of the parts of yourself that hurt us both…" Suddenly, it was there—the smile I'd missed so badly, in full bloom: "But it doesn't hurt to watch you mow down a vamp on the highway, I'll be honest."

We both laughed, then looked at each other once more. "I don't know what to say, Jake," I said with resignation. "It's hard for me to want to be loved and know I don't deserve it." I shrugged.

"I never loved youbecause you _deserved _it," he snorted, then looked serious. "I just couldn't help it. I didn't want to help it, and I was dumb and thought if I got all dramatic—like him—you'd know that you loved me." He laughed. "Is there anybody that really _deserves_ to be loved?"

"You do," I said firmly. He laughed again, and then gently pushed me over so that he could lay down again. He seemed to be saying the conversation was over.

"I don't want you to love me because I deserve it," he said. "Maybe that's something you should know about me." He didn't sound bitter now, but the words had echoes of suffering in them. "I want to be loved…the way I love you. Just because." The sleepiness in his voice lulled me, and I laid down close to him, my eyes on his face.

"I didn't say that was the reason I loved you, Jake," I whispered. "I just said you deserve it. More than anyone else."

"In that case, everybody deserves it, and in _that_ case, nobody is special," he said, grinning with his eyes closed.

"Jacob Black," I said in a louder voice, "I love you because you are the only man that could live in the wilderness for six years and come back out the same ass he was going in." His sharp hard laugh filled the room, almost blocking out my voice, but I knew he could hear me. "I love you because you were my first real friend, that wanted to be friends with me _just because. _I love you because you are true, and honest, and hilarious, and generous." He was very quiet now. "I love you because it is literally impossible for me not to love you."

"But you don't love me as much as you loved him," he simply said, and I saw the pale tracks of tears on his face. I touched him and he didn't flinch, so I moved closer.

"I am not who I was," I whispered, "and I can't love anything the way I loved him." I waited for him to get up, to push me away, to leave, but he did not. "I can just love you the way I do, it's all I can do."

"Am I still the runner up?" He asked, his voice shaking slightly.

"You tell me," I said. "It's just you and me here…what does that say?"

"I don't know," he said, and it truly sounded as though he didn't. I wasn't going to be able to make this right with words, I realized. Nothing could make what had happened right, peel the suffering off of the past and make the pain in his face unreal, but what could take the ache out of the present? My fingertips found their way to his face.

"Why couldn't you just let me enjoy kissing you?" He whispered, and I swept the hair back from his cheeks; his black eyes shone, the scars pale and crisp against his dark skin. "Why did we have to talk about this?" The look in his eyes was searching, the glistening tears gone. It was a good question.

"Because you don't believe me," I said; years of resolve and shame and self-searching darkened my tone. "I want you—I _need_ you to believe me when I say…that I love you." _You are the only one who can validate what I'm doing_, I thought. _You are the only one—if you don't love me back, if this is all foolish, if tomorrow you decide this never happened...I can live with that, as long as you know that I love you. As long as you know you were right._ It was the only apology worth pursuing. Jacob's head tilted as he took me in; the wolf in him smelled my anxiety, and his abrupt strength once again appeared as he pulled me closer.

"We're even then," he whispered, "if you don't believe I love you now either—whatever you think might have changed the way I feel, it didn't." His dark eyes roamed across my face, the long lashes fluttering, and the rough skin of his hands caught me as they cupped my chin. "Maybe…maybe we could just go on faith," he whispered, and pressed his forehead against mine. "Maybe if I promise to try and believe, you can try to believe…"

And then we were kissing again.


	20. Chapter 20

Nothing matched. My weakness, the size of me, versus the size and strength of him. The heat pouring into my mouth, the chill running down my spine. The dry, rough skin of his fingertips, our wet cheeks sticking together as our damp eyelashes tangled, the desperate way I dug my nails in to his shoulder, his low sigh echoing through me as he felt it.

Not enough had changed—I kneeled in front of him, his long legs wide. His back was flat against the wall, and I pursued him until he was hard against it, as if he were running away. And in a fashion, he was; in his youth he had been impulsive, arrogant, even pushy, but as a man Jacob Black was afraid of me. The starlight helped him hide, and he fought it, but the tremble in his body, the hesitation in his posture all spoke to me just as loudly as the hands that swept my hair away, and the lips that bent to press my face once more with the gentlest pressure. He wanted me, badly, and he was terrified.

I wrapped my arms around his waist, slowly sliding my hands across the delicate skin of his belly, feeling each eerie mound of smooth scar tissue, and buried my face in his chest. His nakedness fractured my hunger, replacing it with the physical need to soothe him; I tried to tell him with no words how I loved him.

Here—where the gunshot wound sprayed startling white across his copper chest.

Here—where I sucked the last of the venom from his wrist.

Here—in the cleft of his collarbone, the dip of his pelvis, the instep of his foot. The palm of his hand, the arc of his cheekbone, the smooth, textureless scar dividing his broad mouth. _I love you everywhere_, my hands said. _I will never hurt you._

As surely as if he heard me, he stilled himself and let me roam. He seemed to need to be explored, the shields of solitude deliberately released as he kept his instincts from reacting. Beyond his breath—his shuddering, deep sighs were the only voice he allowed himself as he felt me finding him. I never strayed to places I thought might frighten him.

"Bella," he eventually whispered, and I knew it was all he could muster. I placed my weight on my knees and raised my face to his.

"You are so beautiful," I whispered back to him, wrapping my hands in his long, tangled hair, parting his lips with mine. I inhaled the heat of his body as I kissed him, and felt his arms pull me closer, their banded strength against my back like bars of iron.

"Sort of beautiful?" He asked softly, smiling against me, his eyebrows raised. I knew he was trying to joke and asking for reassurance at the same time. I didn't smile back, just kissed his shadowy face again, feeling the rough and smooth beneath my mouth_; if I could memorize these textures,_ I thought to myself, _if I could keep this scent, this heat, in my mind, I could be content. I could be whole._

"Only to a foolish child who can't say what she means," I said, and fought myself to be able to pull back enough to look in his eyes. "To someone who can, you are just beautiful." I began to kiss his jawline, gently guiding his head with my hands, sliding my mouth across the prominent bones and then down to his throat. His pulse ran beneath the smooth skin, and I got lost there for a moment until I felt his arms releasing me. I pulled back and looked up at him. His face was serious, almost troubled.

"Bella, I…" He didn't finish, but no words were necessary; I could tell the moment had passed. I kissed his mouth again, and then gingerly extracted myself, motioning for him to lay down before wedging in close to him and pulling the covers over us. He looked at me, his brow low, his body still once again. I waited.

"I want to explain," he began, but I cut him off, my words reassuring, as I realized he thought I might need a reason not to move quickly towards the things forbidden us by time apart. I didn't need any reason to rush enjoying him.  
"You don't need to," I said, and reached out to touch him. I could tell now that it would be alright, that breaking the spell of touching once wouldn't mean I never could again. I moved even closer to him, and he closed his eyes, looking slightly relieved.

"I want to," he said slowly, weighing the words. "Call me macho for being embarrassed by this, but…I don't want you to feel…I don't know." He sighed. "I've wanted to be with you for so long…"

"Jake. There's nothing wrong with…this." I continued to run my hands along his ribs, beneath the blanket, letting my fingertips graze his hipbone, then slide back along the same trajectory. His long arms were folded between us, and I could barely reach over them, but I managed.

"I know." He smiled. "Well, I hoped not." He was not self conscious of his body; he was self conscious of our past. "I've always wanted this, you know that," he whispered to me. "I've always been drawn to you, but…I want to be _with_ you." He finished, his voice suddenly a little harsher.

"I don't know what you mean," I said, gently smiling and pushing the tangles from his eyes. "You're with me now, Jake."

"Exactly," he said, and gave me a wry smile that quickly faded. "I want this feeling to stay—I don't want to frighten you, Bella." His brow lowered, his black eyes searched mine. "I don't want to…forget you, if we get too close," he said. "I don't want to lose control."

I'd heard the speech before. My hand stilled, and he immediately noticed; perhaps he even realized what I was thinking, if not in the graphic terms that my mind was using. Suddenly, before I understood what was happening, I was flat on my back and his large body was suspended over mine. His face was so close that I could feel the tremors rippling through him, ending with the slight point of contact at our foreheads. The heat shimmered off of him in waves. "Bella, please—listen, I will be with you. I will. But…not tonight." He pressed his forehead harder against mine, sudden tears springing up in my eyes. "I love you, I love you so much I can't—" He shuddered again and a few of his own tears joined mine. "I love you, and I want it to be perfect. I want it to be beautiful," he whispered. His breath was sweet.

"It can't be perfect, Jake," I said, and a small laugh slipped out of me. He raised his head to see me clearly, a frightened look on his face. "It's just us, Jake, it's just two people that love each other and don't know what they're doing." I touched his sunken cheek, softening the fear. "It will just be us, loving each other." I sighed. "And it's okay if its not tonight."

His face lowered to mine, and I suddenly saw a ghost of what he feared in his eyes. It was as if I had given him permission to return my attention by prolonging the time we could wait; his mouth, when it reached mine, was fierce, tugging my lips apart, pushing wetly inside. Lightning invaded my abdomen as I felt his tongue slip inside my mouth, a small fire raged across my body as my back arched to meet his chest. I was still fully clothed—his right hand slid across and under me, the warmth of it seeped through the fabric covering me and greeted the flames there already. My hands scrabbled across his iron back, pulling him to me; he responded roughly, ripping my shirt where his hand supported me, and allowing me to drop as he tore it along the front along my stomach. His mouth raged against mine and then he abruptly picked me up and slammed my back against the wall, my legs hitched over his arms as he neatly folded me in half with his weight. I gasped into his open mouth, feeling the need in my body clawing to get out; he relented, his face pulling slightly away and growling low. He raised his face to mine, and something wild lingered there.

"I want you," he said. He was pleading—with me, with himself, I didn't know.

"You have me," I whimpered, and bit his lips, my hands raking across his shoulders. I knew I was reaching for the things we'd just said we would wait for. Our combined weight rested on the taunt muscles of his thighs.

But I calmed him, somehow, with these words, and the pressure of his body against mine slowly eased. He gently stroked my bare belly, his warm touch eliciting shivers, and the heat in his mouth slid across the tender flesh of my throat. "I think I believe you," he murmured, and then let my legs down, unlocking his arms from their post under my thighs. I tried to catch my breath as his hands moved over me—finding the places I had found on him, gliding across me, demure but curious. It was then that I felt where his nails had dug in to my skin of my back earlier, but I closed my eyes and refused to acknowledge the pain there. He hadn't smelled the blood, perhaps dulled by the other aromas filling the heated space between us. His hands slowed, and I opened my eyes and looked at him. His face was frozen—desperation battled with lust. "But…Why now, Bells?" His voice shook. "Why now, after all this time?"

It was a difficult question to answer; my head throbbed at the rapid change, my body cooling from the lack of contact. Jacob and everyone else had either ignored or avoided asking me what I'd done in the long years since I'd been gone, even Emily. They probably assumed I'd spent my time in Phoenix pining for Edward, and they were at least partially right. Jacob slowly extracted himself from my body, but I wasn't ready to let him go. My ankles pulled him tight while I fought with myself, the flush of heat his skin left on mine still glowing.

"I loved you a long time ago," I said, knowing it wasn't enough. Seconds before, our bodies locked together, I thought then it would be enough, but I was beginning to see that words, and sighs, and how avariciously, desperately, my body needed his could not be enough. Only time would be enough. "I loved you when we were children, Jake—I loved you the whole time. I just didn't know."

"But you knew you loved him," he said, and his hoarse voice lapsed into confusion and hurt. I released my hands from his back and gently untucked his long arms from behind me, sliding down his thighs as I loosed my ankles. "I'm always playing second fiddle to that guy," he said, letting me down, and in spite of the attempt I knew the joke wasn't real. My head swam from how quickly his moods changed, and I pressed my hands to my temples, cursing the mercurial instincts of the wolf.

"It's different," I said. He knew that it was, but that was no comfort. I settled my weight and looked in to his dark eyes, his chest still. In a way, it was reasonable. He just wanted to know why it mattered—how the tiny difference then could bloom in to love _now, _after years, after everything. I hoped he would understand. "It was tough to go from being basically alone, except for Renee, to having two loves in one really short lifetime. From zero to sixty, you know?" He looked at me and raised an eyebrow, but waited. "And then I went back down to nothing. I know it's not like your time in the woods, Jake, but try to imagine…I was alone too, in a different wilderness." We were facing each other, the starlight making his features bewitching to see, but I found myself looking through him--through the wooden walls of the shack that sheltered us, past the black wall of trees beyond. I saw myself as a teenager, weeping night after night, calling his house and hanging up, writing letters to no one. "The older I got," I said, "the further I came from someone who could be with Edward." His head hung, in spite of what he knew must have been coming, in spite of what he'd asked himself. I spoke again, my eyes locked on the past. "And that is what let me pay attention to myself, Jake." I shifted, still seeing that thin, brown eyed girl—filling out job applications, watching Renee and her husbands, driving a busted red truck through the desert. "And then…I realized I hadn't thought about Edward…that way…for a long time. And I'd never stopped thinking about you."

I stood up and moved over to the window. The rain had swept the clouds from the sky, leaving only enough whipped fringe behind to refract the gentle glow of the stars. The moon, buried there by the horizon, was slender and winking. "I went a lot of places, Jake…I thought of you everywhere—what you would think of the food I was eating, whether you'd like the people I met, what you would say to me about what I was thinking." I turned back to him, knowing he couldn't see my face in the shadows. "I loved you more the longer I was human."

It was strange, knowing Jake finally could not ignore that he held all the power and could do with it what he liked; he could not love me in return—or worse, resent me so much he wouldn't want to be with me anyway. He could go back in to the wolf, he could banish me from La Push, he could leave me humiliated for his friends to find in the morning. I didn't care. I'd made peace with myself by finally telling the men I loved how my heart felt: Charlie knew I loved him; Edward both knew I loved him and that I wouldn't be with him now even if I thought it possible; Jacob knew I loved him, even if he didn't like how it came to be. I was done. I could leave Forks. I could leave planet Earth, and I didn't care.

But instead of the horrors he could have perpetrated on me, Jacob stood up and walked towards me. His heavy hands rested on my bare shoulders for a split second until he moved to fill the shallow gap between us, his heat announcing the approach of his bare skin. I pressed myself in to him—into the scars, into the smooth, rich muscle below, into the years between us. "You have me," I said again, and felt him return my words with his body, the way mine spoke to him before. We soon fell asleep beneath the blanket, our limbs laying haphazardly on top of one another and our faces mere inches apart, sharing breath.


	21. Chapter 21

We soon fell asleep beneath the blanket, our limbs laying haphazardly on top of one another and our faces mere inches apart, sharing breath.

"See? I told you," Quil's voice boomed through the tiny room, launching me into wakefulness a sheer second before the door wretched open with a bang. "They're still asleep—"

His voice was abruptly cut off, but not before Jake sprung from our nest of blankets and ripped out a terrifying string of snarls in response. Sam stood in the light of the doorway, his hand clamped over Quil's mouth and Embry staring over his shoulder with his eyebrows raised. All three of them were shirtless, deftly muscled and scared, even Sam.

"Jeez, never wake a werewolf," I tried to joke, the blankets fortunately having piled on top of me, making effective camouflage. Jacob, seeming to realize where he was, shook his shaggy head and stood up strait before walking over to the gaping trio. He looked a little odd, his huge body exposed and his posture forcibly relaxed. I laughed, then decided to try and not draw any more attention to myself when I remembered the torn shirt I was wearing. The three men in the door simultaneously stepped back before they regained control of their own reactions and tried to look manly again.

"Sorry guys," Jake said in a sheepish mumble. "I haven't been that out of it in a while—I was really asleep." He scratched the back of one leg with a sharp nail, and I swore to myself that before the day was over those things would be gone.

"Yeah, I bet," Quil smirked, his eyes floating back towards me. I pulled the blanket up a little higher, and Jacob quickly swung an arm out in front of him, bracing his long body against the doorframe and blocking me from sight. His huge body let little visibility by. Quil laughed again and Embry punched his arm; I immediately recognized all of the sounds as though I were listening to an old record.

"We'll wait out here," Sam said as the other two turned on each other, playfully scuffling their way out to the yard, their footsteps dropping off of the porch and turning in to the soft sounds of dirt being thrown. "We really came to drop off Em's car, so you guys can get back."

"Don't need a car," Jake rumbled, sounding confused. Sam looked at him, deliberately looked over his arm at me, and then looked back. "Oh," Jake said, and shook his head again. "Thanks, Sam."

"Thank Emily," he said. There was a smile in his voice. "We're going to run back, it'll be nice to check the area for any remaining leeches." He leaned towards Jake and lowered his voice. "These two were a little jealous that you managed to get all the glory_. Again." _

"Yeah!" Quil yelled from the yard, Embry's arm apparently locked around his neck as his voice was forced and harsh. They grappled for a minute before he managed to free himself and jog over. I couldn't see them, but their voices carried and moved around the room as if they were inside. "Nice work, Jake—did you set it up so you'd have to have some battle royale with the old flame around? Seriously, how'd you do that?" His tone was light, but as Embry quietly approached behind him I could tell that more than jealousy over a fight was involved. Quil and Embry were reserved in their judgment of Jake, and frightened by the chaos being around him brought. I wondered how Sam, as alpha, was so welcoming of his presence.

"I don't know yet," Jake mumbled. Quil wasn't satisfied, and over Jake's arm I saw Embry's brows lower as he searched Jake's face. "The…Cullens said they would tell me when they knew more about what was going on."

"Ooooooohh, the Cullens," moaned Quil, rolling his eyes for effect. Sam cleared his throat. Embry quickly punched Quil in the arm again, but looked irritated—at Quil for saying what he was thinking, and at Jake for such a weak explanation.

"The Cullens are in touch with us, Jake," Sam said, and muscled his way in front of Quil. "I want you to stay here and rest." Quil snickered. Embry punched. I was beginning to notice a pattern. "If you don't mind, though," Sam paused, "I was hoping you'd come out and run with us for a while? I want you to do the closest track to the cabin." He managed to be diplomatic and authoritative in one breath; his expression was once again hidden from view, but I knew it would be firm.

Jake shyly looked back at me for the first time over his shoulder. I nodded; I would appreciate some privacy. I didn't even remember what I'd done with the suitcase I'd packed the day before. My mind emptied when Jake's face broke in to his brightest smile yet, and I felt my breath catch. He noticed the difference immediately, and concern crushed the light from his face as he rushed towards me. The trio in the door looked at each other.

"I'm fine," I said quietly. "I just missed your smile." My hands touched his face as relief swept over it.

"I was afraid—" he began, and my mind filled in the blanks_: that I'd hurt you, that you are frightened to be alone and lied, that this was a dream. _Instead, Quil interrupted us loudly, and I heard Embry's punch land just as Jake's body once again filled the doorway.

"_Awwwwww!_ That's so _cute!"_ The door slammed and I heard the scuffle in the yard grow slightly fierce before Sam's voice effectively ended it, urging them in to the woods. It seemed, for a moment, like things were going to be okay. "God, Jake, don't _ever _wrestle me without pants on again—" Yes. Things were going to be fine.

Reality crashed down on me an hour later as I attempted to bathe by the sink; so many things had come together, and to do that other things—equally important, defining, momentous things—had to be dismantled. I was older, and I would become older, taking me further and further not only from Edward but from Jake. And then there was always the possibility that he could imprint, at any moment, and leave me….leave me what? Had we even come close to deciding that we were truly together? I stood by the sink and bit my bottom lip, closing my eyes and white knuckling through the fear. _ There. _There she was….selfish Bella, needy Bella. Come back to call after making it through a whole two days of putting other people first.

I shook my head and spattered the walls with drops of lukewarm, soapy water. Good. Now that I knew my weaknesses were still here, I could overcome them. Better that they don't sneak up on me later, wreaking havoc with their appearance and striking me dumb with what I don't even know about myself. Good. I'm selfish—now what?

I toweled my hair dry with the shredded remains of my shirt and looked around for the fresh—if you could call it that—one I'd dug out of a drawer in the old chest. The cabin looked as though it was maintained, but barely; as if someone lived here once long ago, couldn't quite let go of it yet could never live here again. I understood that feeling. It was the same way I felt about Edward.

My hands dropped to my sides and I stood, mostly naked and definitely alone, trying to reorganize my thoughts in to something resembling order, or sanity. It occurred to me that when I crossed the Washington State line I may have foregone sanity once and for all, and that I'd known that was a possibility all along. Somehow this reminder allowed me to begin moving again, collect my pants, and slide the dusty shirt down over my back. It rubbed the shallow lacerations there and made me wince, but somehow the pain was reassuring. _Last night had happened._ Last night, I was able to show Jacob how I felt about him—and myself. I had been able to find the right words for what happened, and say them out loud; even if they had only really helped me, that was okay for now. He'd promised to try and believe, and I could work with that, given time.

Just as I began to ponder rearranging the sparse furniture in the room, I was suddenly unnerved by the silence. I hadn't noticed it before—the kinds of quiet and constant sounds that pour out of the woods when no one is around. The sounds that had filled the cabin all night and morning, birds, crickets, gently rusting branches and the even patter or rain…nothing. It was dead quiet.

I knew someone was out there before I could move, and when the door burst open and it was only Alice I heaved a deep sigh of relief. Until I saw the look on her face.

"They're back," she said, and I instantly knew who she meant.


	22. Chapter 22

"_They're back," she said, and I instantly knew who she meant._

"The wolves—Edward—" I began, but she moved too quickly for me to process it and clapped her icy hand over my mouth.

"They all know," she murmured, "we found them in time, we're already fighting off the first wave of them." _The first wave_—what was Alice telling me? We sat together against the wall; I thought desperately of climbing on to the roof, then realized in the case of fire we would be burned alive or torn apart when we leapt from the flames. Alice watched me thinking and then spoke in a torrent, her words blurring together and rushing over me like a tidal wave. "They won't be coming here, Bella. They're after Jacob Black—he's been hunting vampires for years, and Victoria spread word of the pack, and him, to find other split pairs." I looked at her, unseeing, hearing her and the voice of a blood red mouth at the same time—_the hunter's mate, I'll savor you, mine—I_ was the hunter's mate. I was Jacob's mate, and he had been picking off vampires for years, and now they were swarming him. "Edward saw traces of it in their minds, but we…we were attacking, we didn't concentrate, and then when we left here last night there were more of them, trying to find him." A cloud passed over her face. "We called the rest of the family here, and now we fight."

"Sam," I breathed, and she nodded, reassuring.

"We found them, we found them before anything dangerous happened, and he is calling the pack out too—the small ones are guarding La Push." The bruises on my arms burned, livid purple, against the calming shelf of her cool arm. "None of them should come here, Bella," and a wry smile crossed her face, her eyes still guarded and distant. Multiple futures raged there. "For once, they're after someone else."

Someone else—Jake. I saw him in the starlight, the flex of his pupils in his dark eyes, the stark white scars slashing his beautiful face. Alice watched me.

"Your future was finally still last night," she said. I looked back at her. The gold in her eyes hypnotized me. "You disappeared, and I didn't notice until I was carrying you here." I remembered her leading Edward away in to the trees, the grim set of her mouth.

"Will I be happy?" I whispered. I knew it was selfish, and that she would understand.

"I can't know," she whispered back, and that answered the rest of the questions I would have asked. We looked at each other, and the deafening silence outside was no match for the lack of words between us.

"Will Edward be happy?" I asked, and she bit her lip, nodded, and pulled me closer to her as I wept.

"Most of the time," she whispered, and the sobs wracked my body, the smell of the sea from so long ago surging through me once again. We stayed like that for a long while, and I was grateful for her, for the calming chill of her body, and the perspective her years gave her, and the infinite patience of a true friend.

Edward found us that way, curled in to one another, impossibly small in the corner of the cabin. He was carrying a body—Leah's. I screamed when I saw her, the long, fine limbs hanging limply in his arms. With Edward carrying her, she looked as though she were nothing more than a beautiful rag doll.

"Alice, you've got to help them," he said. He spoke so softly and quickly the words rushed in to one another like a song, and he looked at me with a delicate crease in his white brow. "Bella, we're going to have to do a repeat of last night, immediately." Alice was gone before he had finished his sentence. Leah's chest barely rose and fell; her eyes rolled wildly beneath her twitching lids. The bight was high on her left thigh, and I looked around in spite of the urgency to find something to cover her. The blood coming out of her terrified me—thank god, in all that had happened, I was no longer the ironically fainting mess I had once been when it came to the smell. I shook my head to focus.

Edward neatly lifted her leg and began to pull the venom out. I watched him—his eyes darkened immediately, his nostrils wide; he ripped her leg out of his mouth and thrust it at me just as he had the night before and hissed one word—"_Quickly_"—before rushing outside. The wound was smooth, unlike Jacob's; this one had been solid and deep. The razor slashes on his side swam before my eyes as I inhaled and forced myself to suck on the bloody flesh.

I saw Leah's eyes flash open. Before I realized what was happening, darkness enfolded me and I heard Edward scream as the room turned sideways.

I awoke to a strange sight. Leah had not staunched her wound, and as I lay on the ground peering up at her, the electric rush of red on the white sheet wrapped around her pulled me in to consciousness. Red. Blood. Leah. What had happened…and then I heard the angry voices.

"—Could have killed her!" Edward was crouched over me, I realized, and as I tried to sit up I bumped in to the dense matter of his calf. He immediately flew out of the way.

"You brought me here to feed her, you freak! You think I don't know what you're doing, it's going to pass as _coincidence_ that just as soon as she shows up all these other bloodsucker zombies show up too—"

"She's _human_, you dolt! Could you have knocked a vampire unconscious?" Edward kept himself away from Leah, no doubt fearing the scent of her blood and her noxious attitude would be more than his restraint could handle. I heard myself laugh a little, and as though they'd been suddenly doused with cold water they both turned to stare at me.

"Leah, you thought I was a _vampire_?" I laughed again. It seemed obvious, in retrospect. The taste of irony mixed with the absurd and I found all I could do was howl with laughter. Edward glared at her, plainly livid.

"You should see yourself before you make fun of me," she hissed, and I felt the smile slide off of my face. I could feel a sticky wetness on my chin, and I knew the revulsion in my expression must have reached home with her as I tried to raise myself to walk. She looked momentarily ashamed while Edward flew towards me, helping me stand, and I hobbled over to the sink. Being upright made my head throb.

"Holy crow, Leah," I whined, and turned back to look at her. "I thought you guys knew that's what it took to get the venom out." She rolled her eyes, exasperated, and I scrubbed at my face with my hands. Edward hovered around me protectively.

"It takes all of us," she muttered. "I've never seen just one person do it before—unless you count _them_ as people." She glared back at Edward, and the animosity between them crackled. I laughed again, feeling dizzy.

"Well, Edward saved your life with his vampire vacuum powers, I just got the last little bit of the venom out." I needed ice. I needed anything to keep the deep throbbing on my head from getting worse. "Maybe you should work together more often, if it usually takes the whole pack to do the job of one vampire."

"We're not made to suck blood," she hissed. "We work with what we've got."

I rolled my eyes and turned to her. "So do they—so do I, Leah. You can't be right all the time, it wouldn't kill you to just say you're sorry and be done with it." We stared at each other, and I realized as I looked at her that she was shaking. The red on the sheet was becoming bolder, beginning a small _tap, tap, tap_ as it hit the floor. I turned to Edward. "Do you think you can guard us from the woods, Edward?" He looked hurt, and I immediately reached out a placating hand. His eyes glazed as I touched his arm. "I would like to try and find something else for her to wear, and you might be able to hear them better from out there."

"But I won't hear what's happening in _here_," he whispered, and then his eyes swept towards Leah. I could see him realizing how little she wore, and the consequential turn of his head told me that as a gentleman, he would find a way to give us some privacy. "Perhaps I can stay on the porch," he said, and he was gone before I'd turned back to Leah.


	23. Chapter 23

As always, I would like to thank the loyal readers and reviewers who consistently offer their opinions and support--in particular naruhina, sunglasses, biteorimprint, augustblack, snowfire, harleygreen, crazilyaddicted...I'm sure I'm forgetting many, and then again there are lots of folks who read regularly and review when they can, offering more passive support. So many of you guys are amazing writers, also. In addition a quick note to folks who pm me (writersblck?), make sure you have your ability to receive messages engaged or I can't reply (in short, though: I am honored you care enough to offer a direction, but my response is for you to write it! I would love to see your idea in your own words. This story has a shape of its own, but all of us could always use new interpretations of the original work).

*****

"_Perhaps I can stay on the porch," he said, and he was gone before I'd turned back to Leah._

"I'm fine," she barked, and abruptly sat down with her back against the wall. _Sure you are,_ I thought, and turned towards the same chest of drawers that had held the ragged shirt I currently wore. Her eyes closed as I approached her, and although she was still shaking her breath came more regularly. Even with the blood loss, she was better than when she'd arrived. "I wondered, when I saw you, why you didn't stink," she muttered, and peeled one eye open to look at me as I carefully wound the sheet around her leg, hoping the make-shift tourniquet would stem the flow. "And then I thought, it has to be buried under all that Jake hanging off of you." Her mouth twitched. I figured it was as close to a smile as I was going to get, and I couldn't tell if she was genuinely commiserating with me or just enjoying torturing Edward with her thoughts. Probably both.

"I'll make a deal with you," I said, and looked at her evenly. I could tell the exact spot on my head where she'd hit me; the swelling was spiraling pain across my scalp like the eye of a hurricane. She looked at me soberly. "I don't need an apology—god forbid a thank you--if you stop torturing Emily." Her eye roll began on the word _torture_ and was still going strong after I was done.

"No deal," she said, and closed her eyes again. I nudged her with my outstretched hand and she opened them once more to eye the clothes I held. I nudged her harder, and she began to sit up. In spite of her grunted protests, I helped her pull them on and brought her the colander I'd filled with water for Jake the night before. She hungrily gulped it down.

"Why not?" I knew she'd know what I meant, even though minutes had passed in between. I stood up and walked back to the sink for a refill while she gasped and wiped her face with the hem of her shirt.

"Principle of the thing," she griped, and I turned to look at her with one eyebrow cocked. She shrugged at me from the floor; once again, she looked like a beautiful rag doll, emphasis now on the rags, as the clothes we'd found were musty and moth-eaten. "I can't forgive her. She's my cousin! She stole my boyfriend, it's the principle of the thing."

"She didn't steal him," I spoke sharply, the water sloshing over at her as I handed her the newly filled container. "And we're talking about something that happened a hundred years ago."

Leah barked her hard laugh. "Maybe time feels that way to you, vampy. But I don't age." She stared at me. I knew that if I hadn't been close to Jake before, Leah might be intimidating, but as things stood I just stared right back at her and got comfortable on the piled blankets and pillows surrounding us. She noticed and her look softened a little. "I can't forget it," she said, and her eyes wandered around the room before coming back to my face. "We don't forget things. We don't move on. The whole point of being a protector, the whole not aging thing, all of that, is to stay static." She shook her head. "I'm stuck being a dumped seventeen year old girl forever."

"You don't look seventeen. You don't sound seventeen."

"Swell then. I sound forty and look twenty—it doesn't matter. The point is that I'll never get enough space from them to move on. I'll always be stuck with an alpha that dumped me, and I'm the still the only girl around the bunch of them." She traded anger for sadness, and I found her pain much more difficult to dismiss. I got up to find a brush for her hair, tangled and wild across her body.

"You're _not _the only girl, Leah, that's what I'm trying to say—"

"What? You think you and Emily have something in common with me, because you're—you're, whatever the hell you're doing with Jake?" Fury shook her voice. I didn't turn around to look at her until I found the brush, and when I walked back across to her she had finished shaking.

"We're all female," I said as I sat down and looked at her. She snatched the brush up from where I'd put it on the floor. "And I'm not trying to say that either Emily or I have anything like your experiences, I'm just trying to say we have that in common." She didn't look at me, and began to tug the brush through the very bottom of a fistful of hair. "I wasn't trying to talk about myself at all, Leah, actually, but you and Emily have a lot in common."

"Oh Jesus!" She snapped. "Like being in love with the same guy? Thanks, genius."

"No, you jerk!" Her mouth dropped open as she stared at me, but I continued. "Like being women from the same family and culture and constantly surrounded by terrifying danger! Besides, Leah, even if it hasn't been a hundred years Sam and Emily have been together now for longer than you and Sam even knew each other, what's it going to take for you to finish punishing her just for saying _yes_?" I could tell I was still tired; I wasn't angry with Leah, but I had nothing to lose by being honest with her. She didn't like me, we were trapped here together, and Emily was my friend. "Jeez," I muttered, and grabbed the brush from her frozen hand. "I can do a better job of that anyway, turn around," I finished, and although her mouth snapped shut and her expression told me she might bight me, she did.

"You think the guys didn't think all of that junk at me _every single day_ for years?" She was whispering, and I suddenly understood that turning away had allowed her to be able to cry. I kept my hands methodically busy with the strands of hair before me. "You think I don't know all of that crap myself? Of course I do." Her voice became even lower, hissing out at me, but she refused to face me. "The only one, the only person who ever understood, was Jake." Her head bowed. "You don't know what it's like, to be humiliated, to be despised, and worst of all, to know why—to even agree, and not be able to stop yourself." I stopped moving, and I watched her shoulders shake helplessly. Without asking I knew she didn't want me to hug her, so I hugged myself instead, wrapping my fingers around the deep bruises on my forearms and listening for her breath to calm.

"You're not right about that, Leah," I whispered. "I know what that's like. Heck—you hate me now, and I don't even blame you." This made us both snicker, and to my surprise Leah began to turn around and face me. She was much taller and my eyes only reached her chin; the purple under her own was rich and frightening, and I immediately rose to get more water for her. She used it to wash her face, and I continued once she drank the rest. "I'm serious, Leah. I'm serious about being a despicable, selfish person who hurts other people."

"Couldn't have said it better myself." We snickered again, and then looked at each other. "Okay, I guess I would never have said that," she said, and reached for the brush again. I pulled it back from her, raising my eyebrows and she nodded her assent before turning around again. "Jake would have killed me," she shot at me over her shoulder, and I pulled a little harder than necessary as we both laughed again.

"Well, I think it's pretty apt." We were quiet for a minute. "But I'm trying to fix it, you big jerk." She shrugged, and bowed her head again. "That's what I'm trying to say, Leah—it's worth it to try. It wouldn't kill you to try something new." She sighed in exasperation and I pulled her hair to make her look at me, and she let me. "Honestly, hating people isn't working for you. It hurts Emily, granted, but it also makes you lonely."

"The whole reason I'm second is because I'm this way," she said in a low voice, and this time I sighed with exasperation.

"You're second because you're the smartest." I leaned forward. "You're just as smart as Sam, and you're a better leader than any of the other guys. You're smaller Leah—" she turned to look at me face to face—"if they didn't know you had the brains, one of them would've tried to take your place by now." I looked at her knowingly; the nervous tension in the air at the La Push Bar and Grille had taught me a lot about rank in the pack.

"I don't remember you being this observant," she said, her eyebrows lowering, and I shoved her shoulder to turn her back around. "I must not hate you as much if I'm letting you brush my hair." I was almost done, and I tugged just a little harder as I moved towards her crown.

"Well, we can't be friends until you make up with Emily," I said, and she sighed and took the brush from my hand and stood in one movement, so fast I blinked. I'd forgotten she was a werewolf, for a moment there; part of me thought she had too.

"We can't be friends," she said, and moved to a corner of the house and laid down. I looked after her for a moment and then stood up to check on Edward. My bones creaked, and I felt older than I had in a long time; it was hard to believe I'd only been in Washington for three days.


	24. Chapter 24

AN: I forgot zeppelin! There, I feel better.

*****

_My bones creaked, and I felt older than I had in a long time; it was hard to believe I'd only been in Washington for three days._

Edward stood like a statue on the far corner of the porch; the images accompanying the conversation inside couldn't have been comfortable to see. As I watched him, my mind perused previous questions about the possibility of loving Edward as a human. Would Edward have loved me as much if he were able to hear my thoughts as easily as everyone else's? Another mystery that couldn't be solved. I realized he was watching me, his eyes taking me in even as the rest of his body stayed impossibly still. One of his hands was braced against the railing, and the faint dusting of sunlight peeking through the grim sky made his skin dance brilliantly.

"Thank you Edward, that was very gracious of you," I said quietly. I knew that Leah, with her own unnatural abilities, would be able to hear our entire conversation; I hoped she slept instead. He didn't move, except for a gentle parting of his lips.

"It's strange," he said quietly, the melody of his voice barely reaching my ears. "And possibly quite rude, considering the private nature of your conversation…but I feel as though I should defend her." He cocked his head and smiled at me, blasting me with the overwhelming loveliness of his face. "Her mind so blatantly contradicts her words—humans can be so puzzling." We kept a reasonable distance between us, in spite of my rampant desire to run to him, to touch him; I could tell he was going to talk about anything, _anything_, to keep from discussing Jake and I, even the private thoughts of others. My perverse need to comfort him would not help.

"She's got a lot to sort out," I mumbled, and turned to look out at the dark trees surrounding us. "Are you able to hear anything? From the…fighting, I mean."

"Yes," he said, and the wash of beauty in his smile was replaced by arctic stoicism. "Many things—snatches of the wolves' thoughts, so many at once…and _theirs_, as well." His nostrils flared. "The wolves are not to be trifled with. They have always been strong, and with surprise on their side they were virtually indestructible. But now," he turned to look at me, and his honeyed gaze searched my eyes, "with even a wounded Jacob Black, they are exceptionally powerful." He waited, then continued. "Did you know that he was….hunting?"

"I found out that first night," I told him. We looked at one another, and I knew our worried expressions were mirrors. "I told him it was suicide…and maybe its foolish, but I thought he was going to stop."

"Yes," Edward whispered faintly. "He was." I realized that Edward would have read Jacob's dreams as he carried him, his thoughts in battle; although the raw language of Jacob's mind was probably mystifying, Edward probably knew much more about what was happening there than I did. I stopped myself from asking, knowing it was wrong on every level. Edward watched with the same intensity from a moment before, and never looked away. When they came, the song in his words was deeply sad. "Many mated pairs were severed by the pack, and as I've mentioned, vampires who experience the change of bonding do not recover from its end. They hunt him because they can do nothing else."

"There are other things they can do," I whispered. "There are other things in life, besides…" I couldn't finish. The words felt thick in my throat, catching and collecting tears I willed not to fall.

"There is nothing else in death, Bella. And that is what we are," he whispered back. We were quiet together for a long moment before he spoke again. "May we sit together?" He swept his arm towards the stairs where we had said goodbye the night before, and I nodded. As we took our seats, the air chilled and settled between us and I shivered; things felt strange. I studied my hands, and deliberately made myself catalogue the flawless beauty of Edward's in comparison: the elegant shimmer radiating from his diamond hard flesh, the lovely bloodless palm, the deft and perfect creases cutting across it. He could never sunburn, or wrinkle, or scar. My hands looked withered and fleshy. My hands looked _used; _so much of the rest of my body felt new, sadly untouched, but my hands…. Edward watched my gaze, and closed his own into fists. I reached over and gingerly touched the nearest one, feeling it open, letting the chill seep through my skin. The raw gold in his eyes was the only warmth between us until he smiled once again. "You have always been so brave, Bella—sometimes it still startles me."

"It isn't bravery that lets me touch you," I replied. "It never has been."

"There is more in your eyes now than the simple, unquestioning acceptance of your monstrous vampire boyfriend," he said, and his eyes twinkled. "What did you see, looking so intently at our hands?"

I sighed, and forced myself to smile until I truly felt it. "How different we are. How much I've aged since the last time I took your hand."

"See, Bella?" He murmured. "Do you not think yourself brave, to look time in the eye?" I couldn't raise mine to his face, instead searching my own palm. "You are more beautiful now than you were, Isabella Swan. You are more beautiful each passing moment."

"And you are a hopeless romantic, Edward Cullen. Don't make me use your middle names just because you're sentimental about getting old." We both chuckled, and then Edward's head snapped up. He stood abruptly, my hand falling back in my lap and lifting the chill surrounding me.

Jacob stood at the edge of the woods, leaning against the nearest tree. No blood was visible, but his head hung low, and his breath came out in shallow gasps.

"It's done?" Edward's eyebrows were low as he searched Jacob's mind. I found I was rushing towards him without being able to stop myself, and as I approached, he turned his head from me.

"Jake…" I whispered, and found I could go no further. He began to stagger to the porch, away from me. Edward moved like lightning across the grass towards him and caught him, just as he was about to topple. I felt a wash of relief until I realized Edward was gently shaking him.

"Don't be a fool," he hissed. Jake moved an arm as if to swat him away, but Edward curled his lip and began to heave him back over his shoulder in a fireman's carry until Jake yelped. The difference in their size was startling.

"No!" He said, and then I did run to him. He still wouldn't look at me, but seemed unable or unwilling to keep me from touching him. "It's over," he whispered. "The rest of the pack will be here in a few minutes to get Leah." He looked firmly at Edward. "And her."

Now it was my turn to protest. "No!" I tried to pull his face towards mine, but it wouldn't budge. He stared defiantly at Edward from the ground, the drawn hollows of his cheeks gently puffing as he breathed deeply and quickly.

"Can't you see?" Edward's enraged voice was barely audible, and I knew it had dropped below my hearing range when I saw Jacob's face twitch with tears. He looked ashamed and angry, and he lurched roughly to his feet and moved once more towards the house. Edward turned to me.

"He knows, Bella," he said. The sorrow outlining each word filled my mind. "He knows that you love him, but he is afraid, and searching for proof that you do not." He leaned towards me, filling my lungs with the spice of his icy breath, his cool hands resting ever so gently on my shoulders. "He loves you so deeply it is a madness. If he did not, I would never abide his being so rude to you. But in truth…I understand how he feels." He paused, exhaled; "the pictures in his mind have already begun to change again." Edward very quickly, very lightly, hugged me to him, and then let me go. "I will speak to you again once you return to Forks." And just as suddenly as Jake had appeared, Edward was gone. Quil and Embry took his place.


	25. Chapter 25

_And just as suddenly as Jake had appeared, Edward was gone. Quil and Embry took his place._

"Hey," started Quil. They both looked hale, panting slightly and grinning wildly. They thumped each other's broad backs in a congratulatory way and strode across the short lawn like conquering soldiers after a long journey. "Leah!" Quil yelped her name and started jogging up the stairs as Embry tried to elbow past him, presumably to be the first story-teller among them. I bashfully followed, afraid of Jacob's reaction to my proximity; I knew no one would take me to Forks without my consent but I was still wary of the time when they might ask me to go. I heard Leah's voice, hard and authoritative, as I broached the door.

"Who is still on patrol?" She was standing up, leaning against the wall; the brief nap had helped her werewolf constitution enormously, but she was clearly still weak. "Almost all of our fighters are here!" Her expression was murderous, but I realized the true target would be Sam, and not the men presently in front of her.

"Jared, Paul, and Seth…along with a couple of the vamps—the _good_ ones," Quil spoke quickly. "Sam took the little boys back to La Push."

"Casualties?" Her expression hadn't altered. Jake was sitting down on the pile of blankets we'd slept in. I moved to the kitchen and began rustling together a quick meal; I knew there was enough food here for an army, even if there were no clothes or phone. The pack had its priorities well sorted. I had mine; I didn't want to know which of the children I'd seen last night may have died.

"Only injured," Quil said quickly, and I could hear the grin on his face and answered with one of my own, even if no one saw it. "Everybody's accounted for."

"There may be many more coming," Leah said, as if she were refusing an offer to relax, but Quil's smile greeted her again.

"The little one said there weren't going to be any more for at least a month. And she said when they did come, there would be fewer, more like a trickle, kinda. She didn't see us having any problems in the future."

"She told me they were unorganized," mumbled Leah, and at last she sat down with a thud I could hear all the way from the kitchen.

"They were totally unorganized! They were—"

"They were chumps! We decimated them—"

"They are, and were, the most dangerous predators of humankind." Leah's voice was final. "How did the battle go after I was bitten?"

Embry spoke, his voice deeper and more somber than Quil's. I created piles of food, stacks of sandwiches, fished sodas from the freezer, arranged plates and began passing them out, thinking of Emily the entire time. How she had done this, alone, for so many years was beyond me; no wonder owning a restaurant had failed to intimidate her. Hordes of customers couldn't eat what the pack would in just one day. I tuned in just in time to hear Leah say "Start from the beginning, Embry—I still don't know what happened last night on the highway. Everyone's thoughts were full of the present battle."

"Neither do we, really," Embry shrugged. "We got there after it was over and done with."

"Jacob," she said sharply, and turned to him. "I know you're exhausted, but I want to know."

His labored breathing answered her. He began to pull himself upright, and in spite of myself I rushed over to help him. He was too weak to shrug me away, and I took advantage of it, pulling his hair back from his face and then sitting beside him with a marginal space between us. I wanted to respect his need for boundaries at the same time I desperately wanted to pull him to me, all while fighting the urge to yell at him. He saved me the trouble, looking down at the floor and then over at my toes. It seemed too much for him to meet my eyes.

"Bella was there," he said. Everyone in the room suddenly seemed to melt away, as his rumbling voice echoed back to me. "Would you mind, Bells? I'm…real tired."

I didn't mind. I looked to Leah to make sure it was alright if I spoke, and then gently, hesitantly, moved diagonally away from the wall and his shadow and into the light beside him. His hand grazed mine lightly, and I suddenly knew that he was embarrassed for how he'd behaved moments earlier. His mercurial mood swings were still in effect; we would have to talk about it tonight. When I didn't feel like screaming. I gingerly planted the plate of food in his lap and looked at the group.

"We were in the truck, driving, and then…" I didn't know how to continue for a moment; _I confessed I loved him and he jumped out of the speeding truck_? Jake coughed, and then saved me.

"I smelled them, and I jumped out of the truck." I looked at his face; we'd still never clarified what had happened between us in that moment.

"The _moving_ truck," I said, and Leah's eyebrows raised while Quil began to grin. Jacob quietly coughed again, a little guiltily, and I continued. "I didn't see the rest of them—the first one I saw was…her. Victoria. She started walking towards me from the middle of the highway." I heard my voice take on the trance-like quality Jake's had several nights ago, describing the woods. Everything felt like a dream. "Jake slammed in to her and she bounced, several times, and I ran back to the truck—which is when I saw the rest of them. I was scared, but they weren't paying any attention to me, they flew right by me and headed towards Jake. So I got in the truck and swung it around towards them and—"

"—and crushed ole Vicki flat!" Quil was grinning big, and he and Embry laughed before looking abashedly over at Jake, who tossed his hair aside so they could see him grinning back. It looked like old times.

"Yeah," I smiled in spite of myself, and watched Leah watching me. Her lips were pursed tight, but her eyes crinkled just enough for me to know she was pleased. "I guess I did." I sighed then, remembering several unpleasant things at once—Victoria's words, her gruesome face, the destruction of my beloved old machine. "And then I blew up the truck while she was pinned under it." A low whistle brought my attention back to the moment at hand.

"_You_ blew up the truck?" Leah's puzzled expression mirrored Quil and Embry's. Jake continued to grin.

"Yeah—you didn't know it was me?" I felt my confusion melting; we'd already discussed the fact that no one had really had time to update the La Push faction. "Well, it was. I jammed something in the gas tank, lit it up and ran." I realized that the tight purse of Leah's lips had loosened and she was now looking at me with a strange recognition; _we can't be friends_. Well, Leah and I were going to be friends now, I thought.

"Pretty brilliant strategic maneuver, Bella," she said. "Created a pyre in the middle of the fight, disposed of a vamp and wounded two more….even with the danger of being seen, it was pretty great."

"Wounded?" I looked at her.

"Yeah—that's probably what saved all of your lives. When the truck blew it critically injured two of the vampires, making the fight more even. Well, not really even, as it turned out." She grinned widely at me. "Excellent work, vamp tramp."

"Thanks," I said, and shrugged. "It was the last thing I did besides almost get killed. I realized Edward and Alice were fighting with Jake—" I put my hand on his bare thigh and felt his skin flinch before he turned to look at me, his bright dark eyes questioning, wanting, apologetic—"after I ran from the explosion in to the woods, and one of the vamps caught up with me there." I tried to recall her exact words…they had revealed more than Victoria's frenzied hissing. "She…she said that I was the hunter's mate, and that she was going to—" _savor_ "—kill me because he'd killed hers. Her mate, I mean." I looked at Jake. "I think….I think she was talking about you."

"How do you know she wasn't talking about Cullen?" Leah didn't spare Jake's feelings, and her tone was firm and militaristic. Jake looked down again.

"I wasn't sure what she meant, at first," I mused. "She said I was unique among, you know, humans—that I belonged to three worlds." The wolves stared at me, and I felt the blood rush to my skin. "I was human, and the hunter's mate, _and_ loved by a vampire. So…she would've just left out all of that hunter stuff, I think, if she was talking about Edward." I looked around at them. "Surely, the Cullens must have told you guys this stuff too? I mean, Edward told me they were after Jake—the halves of the pairs that survived. That's who Victoria was recruiting." We all looked at Jake again, and his face continued to study the floor.

"I didn't really understand what they meant," Leah said, and her expression was once again cloudy. "But it looks like…do vampires _imprint_?" She stared at me, and Quil, Embry and Jake opened their eyes wide and gaped.


	26. Chapter 26

_She stared at me, and Quil, Embry and Jake opened their eyes wide and gaped. _

"Not—not exactly," I said. "From what I understand about imprinting, anyway." I gulped and looked around at them. "They still have choices, for example. But—once they bond with someone…a love bond, they change. They're altered in some fundamental way." I shook Edward's face from my mind. "If one half of an imprint didn't want to be with—"

"Would never happen," Embry interrupted me. Leah's expression was carefully guarded.

"Okay, then, if one half of an imprinted pair dies, what does the one left behind do?"

"Assuming it's the wolf half?" Leah cocked her head at me, and I wondered how many mannerisms the pack adopted from their wolf sides when confronted with unpleasantness. "I'm not sure. I think, from the stories, they refuse to phase back to human form, or they choose to die."

"Do they seek revenge at all costs?" I raised my eyebrows. Leah shrugged.

"I'm not sure they could if it would cost the pack." She looked sad, and I knew she was thinking of Sam. As alpha, he especially would be in conflict were anything to happen to Emily and retaliation would embattle the pack, needlessly endangering lives. "Usually the person who's imprinted on basically becomes a member of the pack, so they receive our protection…but if they weren't…" Her voice trailed off, and she frowned at me as her mind wandered across previously unconsidered possibilities.

"Vampires can choose to abandon their families, covens…they can do that. They can pursue revenge at any cost. And obviously, they _will_," I said. An air of finality was settling over the conversation. "How many vampires have you guys killed?" Quil grinned and Embry grimaced. Jake's eyes never left the floor. A long moment passed before he raised his eyes to mine, and when I saw his expression, a great sadness lingered there.

"I didn't know," he whispered. "I didn't know they were paired." I put my hand on top of his.

"You feel sorry for them?" Leah snarled. "You feel bad for ridding the world of frigging _leeches_?" Jake just stared back at her. He was unafraid of admitting to his sadness; I saw the difference then, in the way they mourned. Jake had moved passed anger, to bitterness; his love for me might have rekindled a sympathy for mates that wouldn't have existed otherwise, even if it was evident that he still loathed vampires. Leah's casual hatred masked a relentless fury that lashed out at anything that reminded her of her pain. I understood why Emily thought it would be a long time before they would be able to act like cousins again, and at that moment, I resolved to see it happen. It had to. For both their sakes.

"It doesn't matter," Embry said. His voice was like a balm, still and deep over the divide. "We fought about this before, and it didn't change how we ended up handling it, did it?" He looked at the others, but I felt Jacob withdrawing and realized Embry was talking about something I didn't know. Something that made Jake uncomfortable, something about how they handled…vampires? I looked up at him, and although he acknowledged my confusion with a gentle nod he shook it off and faced Embry directly. It seemed to me that Embry was Leah's second. Pack hierarchy, once again in effect. His voice took on the tone of a reporting officer. "When we arrived, Jake was—we thought—critically wounded. The boy Cullen took him here, and the girl, the small one, briefed Sam on the battle and carried Bella here, where she presumably took care of Jake." Quil smirked, and Leah rolled her eyes. "We collected the remains of the bodies and stored them in the back of the truck, and then carried the truck out towards the mountain range—"

"—Across the Sound?" Leah looked puzzled.

"No, too risky. Back up towards the islands." The image of the wolves heaving the body of my dead truck around was startling; then again, Jacob alone was nearly the size of the truck. It probably wasn't too much to expect them to be able to carry a ton of metal and granite around the state of Washington a couple of times. Embry's voice intruded on my reverie once again. "There were no reanimations in transit. They bodies were all too badly burned." I shivered and gagged a little but no one else noticed except Jake, who wrapped a massive arm around me and pulled me closer to him. I let him. In spite of our earlier conflict, I was relieved by the warmth. We were going to have another intense discussion tonight, I could tell, but I tried not to let those thoughts intrude on the present debriefing. "When we finished, we split in to factions and ran here, letting the small boys guard the house here while the three of us—Sam, Quil and I—came up and checked on Jake. While we were patrolling we caught the scent of more vampires and prepared to engage in combat. The Cullens intercepted us at the same time with the news that we were about to be sieged." Embry sounded utterly nonplussed, but it had just occurred to me that almost no one here had slept in over twenty four hours, much of it spent running and fighting. I squeezed Jake's hand, mine tiny in comparison, and rose to make more food. I knew they'd need it, especially if they were planning, as Leah sounded as though she was, on making it back to La Push tonight.

"Were the vampires on their way to this cabin?"

"The Cullens weren't, I don't think; the little one could see the other vampires coming, so they were trying to reach us and ambush them at once. I _think_," Embry emphasized. I thought of Sam and wondered if he had had a moment to connect with all the troops. "I think this place is safe, except, of course, that it smells like us." He shrugged. "I'm not sure we can help that though."

"Everything in this corner of the state smells like us," Quil nodded. "There's nothing specific about this cabin."

"What happened when the Cullens intercepted you?" Leah pushed the conversation back to the matter at hand. Embry's brow furrowed and he spoke after a second.

"Sam wasn't skeptical of the Cullens, which was lucky, because the rest of us were—except the kids. The kids all like Alice, the little one. She approached us and told us what was happening, and Quil and I kind of shrugged it off, but Sam immediately started organizing. He sent the kids back to La Push to get you and the guys, and the big one—Emmett?—he went with them. And then we didn't get to plan much more, because we needed to fight." He looked over at me. "Alice left to protect you, Bella, and the rest of them fought by our sides until…until he carried you back here, Leah." He looked back at Leah, and waited until she spoke again.

"She said they were disorganized, which seemed pretty obvious. Still…was anyone able to count them?" She looked over at Quil, who shrugged. She frowned, then continued. "What happened once I was bitten?"

"Well," Embry heaved a sigh, "it was almost over by then. The one that got you gave all of us the most trouble, it took Sam, Jake and I almost an hour to finish him. He was very strong…almost spooky strong." Embry's dark brow lowered in thought. "When Cullen picked you up to carry you here, I almost stopped him but Sam knew you would be okay. And the little one told us there were only three more, and she knew exactly where they were. The blonde one, the male"—Jasper, I thought—"was tracking two of them back to Seattle anyway, so Sam and Jared went after him to help, and the rest of us started burning them while Jake and Seth captured the last one. The little one—"

"_Alice_," I interrupted, and all four of them looked at me, sighed collectively, and then the story began again.

"Alice," Embry began, meeting my eyes and graciously keeping the sarcasm he must have felt out of his tone, "told us it was over for now. She said she didn't see any other broken pairs appearing for a while, until some of the covens of the ones we'd fought figured out they weren't coming back. And," he paused, looking at me, "she said that their bonds weren't very strong, so the chances of them coming to fight us were slim."

"The coven bonds between those kinds of vampires aren't strong," I said. "Bonds between mated pairs are." Embry nodded, but I continued. "Alice and the blonde one that tracked some to Seattle are a bonded pair. His name is Jasper." Leah rolled her eyes.

"No one else here cares as much as you do, Bella," she grunted. Quil smirked, but Embry looked at Leah seriously.

"It's good to know, though. All of this is good to know, for the future." For the first time, he looked exclusively at Jake and addressed him. "None of us knew, Jake. None of understood what the consequences might be." Jacob looked back at him gratefully and nodded before lowering his head again.

"Stop doing my job, Embry," Leah snorted, and then looked at all of us with a smirk that slowly faded. "We need to get back to La Push," she said. Quil and Embry looked at Jake and I. "But I'm uncomfortable leaving the two of you alone."

"We won't be alone," Jake said. His eyes stayed on the floor.


	27. Chapter 27

"_We won't be alone," Jake said. His eyes stayed on the floor._

"What are you talking about?" Leah's eyes bored in to him, and he looked up at her.

"Edward Cullen is guarding us. He said he would stay until he was sure I was able to fight again." Jake shrugged, turning towards me. "He said not to worry about him bothering us, or anything…just that he would make sure the area was safe."

"Patrolling the perimeter?" Leah looked incredulous. "To guard you and his ex-girlfriend all snuggled up in a cabin?" She swore, shook her head, and shrugged in rapid fire succession. "I can't believe I'm actually saying this, but I think you're going to be okay. I never expected in my whole life to know that vampires were capable of _love_, but if that's not evidence than nothing is." She started to stand up, but I stopped her.

"It's more than just love, Leah. It's family, and _forgiveness_." She shook her head again and moved towards the door.

"Whatever, vamp tramp. I guess he forgives you for not wanting his cold, dead butt any more, but if you do anything dumb, Jake," and here she turned towards him, a warning arch in her brow, "you can bet he won't forgive _you." _Jacob's gaze met hers and they both nodded in understanding. I realized she was telling him she wouldn't be happy about it either_. We can't be friends._ She motioned for Embry and Quil to get up. "Let's leave these two before we have to help with the dishes," she said, and actually winked at me. "Jake, thanks for the clothes. I know it must be weird to have your friends parading around in your mom's old gear, but we appreciate it." These final words echoed in the room after they left, and suddenly Jake and I were alone.

"This was your parent's cabin?" I wanted to be hurt that he hadn't told me, but I wasn't sure when would've been appropriate. He looked at me apologetically and nodded. The dull satin of his skin had paled from his earlier exertion, and the wounded look in his eyes hadn't left since Edward had spoken to him in too low a voice for me to hear. I assumed this was when he'd told Jake he'd be nearby. Jake began to lower himself on to the pile of blankets and pillows.

The light had dimmed; the day had slipped away as we'd discussed the latest insanity to occur since my trip to Forks began. For a moment I worried about the three wolves, and then realized that even if they were weak, Alice would have known if anything were going to happen. It would be tricky…probably requiring her to monitor Edward's future the most…but even without being able to see them directly, she was the ultimate fail safe, and she'd given us a month's reprieve. I got up and stacked dishes and plates, found some candles and lit them in strategic places close to our little nest, and went to sit on the porch where Edward had accompanied me earlier. Jacob's gentle thrumming snores rumbled along the floorboards. The night eased upon us as my mind wandered, searching the dark trees for a splash of white. I knew Edward was there, but as promised, I wouldn't speak to him until tomorrow when we returned to Forks. I found that I missed him; not the lurching, pining rawness I'd felt even recently, but the same yearning I had when I hugged Alice. I was truly beginning to think of Edward as a friend. Could he ever think of me the same way? I thought of his words that afternoon and wondered.

I realized that Jake's snores had ceased in the same instant that he sat down next to me. At least two hours had passed, maybe even more; not nearly enough to compensate for the exhaustion his body must be feeling. He didn't touch me, and I turned to ask him why when I saw the plaintive look on his face.

"Bella, I'm so sorry," he began. His eyes swept mine, and then wandered out to the small, starlit lawn. "I felt so jealous that I acted like last night never happened. I feel like an idiot."

"You acted like an idiot," I said, still looking up at him. In spite of my earlier anger, I wanted to accept his apology, lay him back down, curl into the dip of his spine, and sleep. I wanted to do anything but berate him, and yet, I felt that if we didn't talk about his rapid mood changes now, I would put it off forever. He looked crushed, and then I pushed myself against his side, burrowing in under his arm, inhaling the smell of his warm flesh and woolen blankets. He brightened slightly, but looked as though he knew it wasn't over. "What do you think I'm going to say?"

"I think 'you acted like an idiot' sums it up," Jake muttered. His plump lower lip pushed out in a bashful pout. The blanket wrapped around his lower half didn't cover his calves or feet, and his long hair hung around his face like a storm cloud. He was exquisite, in the way that only loved ones can be. I felt my love for him blooming across my chest, expanding my ribcage; I felt it in the way I hung on every flicker of his eyelashes, the way my hands raced across his stomach to hold him closer. He watched me, looking afraid. "What am I missing?"

"A couple of things." Our voices were low and shaky. "Like, the fact that I can never tell when I'm going to say or do the wrong thing, or that even the most distracting situation in the world isn't enough to keep your emotions predictable." I leaned back and watched his expressions range from tender to furious and back again. "I can understand why seeing Edward and I would be startling, or even…I don't know. Awful. But, along with everything else—"  
"_What_ else, Bells?" He genuinely sounded like he didn't know. I leaned back.

"Oh, I don't know…how about, my legs are wrapped around you, we're kissing, and I think _this is it he knows we belong together_ and then poof! Back to depression. _Or_," Jacob was rolling his eyes, opening his mouth to protest, "I tell you I'm in love with you and you jump out of a truck. You know. Little things."

"All of those things are related, Bells," he said. His tone was slightly scolding.

"I'm worried that the way they're all related is…that they're all times when you almost wolfed out and ate me." I was still trying to keep it light, but the physical distance between us told me that the intense discussion I'd feared earlier had begun.

"No—I totally was not going to eat you last night when we were…when I was…you know what I mean." His lip pushed out again, ripe but for the shock of white in the center, and then the corners folded up into a sly smile. "Well, not in that way, anyway—"

"Oh _jeeez_ Jacob—"

"Okay, okay, listen." He looked at me and the depth of his seriousness touched me. "Do you remember, that first night, when you said Edward's name?" I nodded. "I don't know if it's possible for you to imagine how hard it is to go from being…an animal…to a person. All of a sudden, too—Bells," he looked at me fiercely, and touched my chin with his heated fingertips, "I love you so much that even the remotest chance that I could talk to you again, just _speak _to you, was enough to make me phase back. I hadn't wanted anything else in years—I just _took _things, food, shelter, lives. I didn't even remember _wanting_." His face was closer to mine, the heat in his touch and his breath blowing across my skin. "And when I heard you tell him goodbye—and you have to realize, it took me a minute to even register the words, because they weren't just images…I _wanted._ I wanted you. Just the chance to say…to say I was sorry for being a dumb kid." There it was. I heard the brutal echo of his voice in my bedroom as he shook off the wolf: _I've waited years…to hear you tell him goodbye. _"This has been really, really hard for me, Bella." He abruptly sat up, and I winced that his face, once so close, was now further away again. "I was actually relieved in one way, as sick as that sounds, when the vamps showed up. Just because it meant I could go back to being a wolf again, even for a little while." He looked down at his hands, his eyes swimming with things I couldn't understand. The moment lengthened and grew between us, pushing the sweetness in to the past, and I decided it was time for bed.


	28. Chapter 28

AN: So. Ahem. This is the heavily edited (T) version of this chapter, and I'm not entirely happy with it. Honestly, I worked on it as much as I'm willing to and we'll all just have to live with its flaws together (kumbaya)…Thank you again so much to the readers and writers that make this fun and communal—y'all are awesome.

*****

_The moment lengthened and grew between us, pushing the sweetness in to the past, and I decided it was time for bed._

"The Hunter, huh," I said softly, and stood up. "Can we take this inside, oh legendary wolf one?"

He didn't move for a second, and I worried that my joke hadn't told him what I'd intended—that I accepted what he'd said--and instead felt like a dismissal. I reached to touch him but in that split second he stood and scooped me in his arms in one fluid movement. I laughed and his massive chest bumped along in jagged breaths as he joined me, ducking under the doorway and stomping back to our little nest on the floor. We landed softly, his agile body bending around me, and his arms supporting my weight until the last second. Suddenly, we were alone, lying together in the candlelight. My laugh caught in my throat as I saw his face; his black eyes glistened warmly, and his lips were slightly parted, but a serious undertone frosted his expression. "You know," he whispered after a brief pause, "in some cultures we'd be married now."

"What do you mean?" I thought again about being distracted from important things, but curiosity prevented me from returning to the previous discussion.

"I carried you across the threshold of my family home," he said. His eyes watched me; the emotion behind them was unfamiliar, indiscernible. We breathed in tandem for a moment.

"If you think half proposing to me is going to make me forget that you were an idiot earlier," I whispered back, a smile on my lips, "you are only half right." I moved a hand to his face; I cradled his jaw, sweeping my thumb across his cheek. A shy smile appeared there.

"It was worth a try, anyway." He grinned openly now, but still refrained from anything more intimate, instead just allowing the gentle brush of my thumb on his hot cheek. Something kept his own hands at bay. "There are other steps, of course."

"To making me forget that you're an idiot?" This time we both laughed a little bit, and when I withdrew my hand I could swear I saw a tiny frown form on his broad mouth before he hid it again.

"No…to the marriage ceremony," he whispered. We were both very still.

"Like what?" I couldn't help myself. I found I was holding my breath while I waited for his answer.

"Consummation of the union," he whispered. His long lashes dipped and skittered across his cheeks as he took in my racing pulse and frozen chest. "And falling in love, but that's supposed to happen before you even get to the door."

"This is sounding dangerous Jake." The candlelight cast his shoulders in deep copper, the smooth scars shining, the long shadows on the walls conspiring to highlight his beauty. I wanted to touch his face again, search the hollows there, and somehow keep things light between us, but at the same time I felt hypnotized by the tension in his eyes. "I'm definitely in love with you, and you definitely carried me over here." That unfamiliar look gleamed behind his eyes again when I said I was in love with him, but he hurried past it.

"Exactly," he said, and his shy smile came back, stealing across his mouth before it reached his eyes. "Now you're on to my plan, Bells."

"Jacob Black, the man with the plan," I whispered, teasing. I realized that his hand had breached the divide between us, slipping towards me across the blanket. I reached out and laid mine on top of it before I continued, but all the teasing was gone from my voice. "What kind of plan could that be, Jake?"

"Bells…" He breathed, and then, as swiftly as he'd scooped me from the porch, he was right next to me, his arms coiling around my body and bringing my face inches from his own. "I am sorry I haven't gotten control of myself yet." I felt the heat radiating from him on my face like sunlight. "I lose it when I get too scared that something—anything—might take you away from me again, even if that something is just you or me. Being dumb. Being _human. _But I'm trying—I'm trying to be with you, Bells. I'm trying to be good at being human again."

"I know," I whispered, then paused, soaking in his words, his heat, his scent. My eyes closed, overwhelmed; I hadn't felt this way…since I was a child, standing in the woods, knowing the truth didn't matter. Deciding, but not knowing, to pursue something that would change my life forever—and it had lead me here, to this moment. Totally unforeseen, a different love than the one I sought then…a different person, and myself, different also…but with that same familiar tenderness from so long ago. I opened my eyes and looked at him. "I'm in love with you," I told him again, and I saw the unfamiliar mist in his eyes and knew, suddenly, that we were feeling the same thing. The mystery in him was the same as mine.

"Please let me touch you," he said in the softest voice, and as he did his hands began to move over mine, along my arms, finally spreading across my back like wings. I slid my body closer to his, finding his mouth with mine—the lingering taste of salt and the smells in his hair, dirt, blood, and the rich, sickly sweet smoke from the fires—surrounded me, pulling my mind through rich, terrifying memories and making my heart pound. His long forearms ran parallel to my spine, pulling me closer and closer; I tried to hitch my left leg over his and found he was too big, and settled instead for wedging it in between his. My hands began to run over his bare shoulders and chest, dwelling in the ridges between his muscles, the gaps where his bones met, the skin tantalizingly soft beneath my palms. The heat from his body was intoxicating. Very slowly, very gently, Jacob moved his strong hands down my body, sliding along my shirt and shorts until they met the skin on the backs of my thighs, and then he rolled over, pulling me on top of him. I laughed, nervously, and used my arms to push myself into a sitting position. His breaths came deep and slow as I looked down at him.

He was twenty three now; he looked twenty three, underneath the scars and the years of lean living on his face. His pensive expression didn't match the surety of his strong body, the way his hands felt when they lightly rested on my stomach, his hot fingertips stirring the violent waves dormant in my body from last night. He was heart breaking; everything that had hurt him was plain on his body before me. He was so starkly beautiful I felt my eyes water, and when that happened, the anxiety in his eyes changed to outright fear. In one of his startlingly fast movements he sat up and our faces were inches apart.

"Bells, don't be sad—we don't have to do anything, we can just sleep—"

"No, its not that," I said, my own voice so deep I didn't recognize it. "Jacob, it's hard to look at you, and see how much you've suffered, it's all over your body…" One of his hands wrapped around my waist, supporting me, as the other one stroked my cheek. His eyes moved rapidly over my face, taking in my words and the smell of my sadness absorbed by his delicate nose. His hand was shaking. "I want you," I said. "And I want you to be happy about it. I can see you—underneath everything that's happened, underneath these scars, I can see you—"

And his mouth was on mine.

_*****_

_Push your breath in to me, while I rest here, my weight on my knees, all these goosebumps on my chest, my shoulder is bare—don't put your teeth there, not yet. Push your breath in to me, show me how your hands are really wings, the breadth and width of them, we will fly away from ourselves, strapped and bound by these wings, your hands, as they search me for twins of you—I don't have them, your scars, I don't have the same ones, my skin is so untouched and lonely and unused, please help change that. Let me show you where I love you—there is a path I travel on your body, long low mountains where rapids cut across as smooth blank scars, erasing the memories your skin held there, but here again I find the path, smooth until a deep valley leads me back to the forest, follow the valley down, all of your smooth skin interrupted by these fine brittle trees, and then I see you there, waiting. Your people were fisherman, warriors, battling the sea. I see you there, waiting, and we will wade across this infinite water together, I carry some of the sea inside of me, it will know us, and we will come to no harm. Hold my hand. Push your breath inside of me._

*****

We were quiet for a long time, feeling our bodies stick together in places, feeling raw, reassembled, tracking visions in the candlelight. Jacob's back was against the wall, his arms holding me tight to him as I sat, curled against his chest. I listened to his heart, felt him inhale and exhale rapidly; the scent of our evening was everywhere. He only spoke when his hand lightly ran over the raised flesh on my back, and when he did, the horror in his tone was evident even before he saw my bitten shoulder. I looked up at him, unabashed.

"Bells…"

"Don't," I said again. I kissed his chin, slid my hands up to hold either side of his face, his cheekbones under my thumbs as my fingers ran in his hair. "Don't try to tell me this wasn't perfect, it'll just make you a liar, Jake." I smiled into his mouth, and felt him give a little, his hands careful on my body. He sighed heavily, knowing the battle was already lost.

"It was just as advertised, Bells…just two people who don't know what they're doing, trying to love each other." Not all of the fear was gone from him, but he'd been happy until he'd seen the consequences written on my body. I moved my thumbs higher, stroked the line of his brow out to his temples, saw his eyes close. I slid one hand behind his head and pulled his mouth down towards mine.

"I don't think I'm ever going to feel whole again," I whispered, and then kissed him. I moved my lips across his jaw line, teasing his throat, his ear, and felt him begin to respond in spite of himself.  
"What do you mean, Bells?" His tone was worried, and I could tell that he was prepared to put a stop to everything, what was happening, how his body betrayed him, even if he felt just like I did.

"I mean, I can't do this with you every minute of every day…I can't have you like this all the time…and whenever we're apart, I'm going to miss it." He froze momentarily, and then I could tell that I'd finally found them. The right words. Finally. It was almost as if I'd put the fire out, as if I'd found something that could complete him too…just the idea, I supposed. Just the idea of that kind of love could make life worth it.

Then it began again, the sliding skin between us full of the smell of salt, dreams….his long hair draped over my face as he looked at me and we were both dreaming together, the ocean large before our staring eyes, everything entangled on this journey across our waking dream, slow and fast and raw and smooth and everything, everything, everything.


	29. Chapter 29

AN: Thank you everyone for your incredibly kind reviews. They mean a lot.

*****

We awoke to the quiet company of the rain on the roof, our bodies twined together on piles of blankets. Jacob slept deeply even with my body weighing his down, his arms wrapping me to him and the gentle rumbles issuing from his chest unable to keep me from dreams. We slept in, spent a lazy afternoon together, and didn't get back to Forks until late in the evening. The mood abruptly changed as we turned on my street, and Jacob looked at me with a strange desperation once we pulled Emily's car over by the curb at Charlie's front door. I immediately understood.

"Just wait until I go up to bed," I said, "and then come inside and lay beside me until you want to go. It'll be okay." I recognized his panic at being apart because I felt the same thing.

"What if I _don't_ want to go?" Jake whispered to me, his hands heavy on the wheel. I smiled at him and slid beneath his arm, allowing my fingers to trace his jaw as I kissed the hollow under his ear.

"You just can't let Charlie know you're there, Jake. I don't want you to go either." He seemed reassured, pulling me in to his lap and pressing his forehead to mine. We briefly relived our time in the cocoon of last night before breaking apart; it felt for a moment as though the world had ceased moving. I tried to memorize the hot silk of his lips as I waved goodbye and felt a little better. We'd be together again in no time. He puttered off to La Push to return Emily's car and I steadied myself as my thoughts turned to Charlie. I didn't even know how to begin to explain what had happened to the truck. The house seemed dark and foreboding, and I again retreated in to my memories of the previous night. Remembering that I would once again be curled in to Jacob, if fully clothed and spent from fighting with my father, I began the hesitant march up the walk.

Charlie looked shockingly happy to see me when I came through the door. "Hey there," he said, and in spite of his typically quiet demeanor he was glowing. It occurred to me that he may have been hoping a reunion with Jake would ensure my continued presence in Forks, and his life. It made me sad that my father had to rely on romantic machinations for hope in seeing me more often; I had been bad at being a daughter. That was okay, though, or at least it would be, as it looked like I would be sticking around. But after a brief display of standing up, turning down the tv, and talking about the casserole he'd saved for me, his face rapidly fell.

"I'm sorry about the truck, Bella," he said, and I could feel my blush rising along with my pulse. He nodded and continued. "Emily called to tell me you were okay, but I know how attached to it you were—and right after Jake fixed it up, too!" He chuckled. "Well, maybe that means you'll be around a little longer?" His dark, clever eyes looked at me; I was grateful I was wearing a turtle neck.

"It seems that way, Dad," I choked out. I had no idea what Emily had said about the truck, but from his words I hoped I could infer that it was well covered. His expression changed to one of concern when I didn't say more.

"Bells, don't worry about the truck. Accidents happen—it's a little strange that you've had two in such a short amount of time, but the way Emily told it, it seemed that the first one had done more damage than Jake realized. He's a great mechanic, honey, but he's not a magician. She was a goner. Don't worry." He clapped a hand on my shoulder, we both felt awkward, and then we quickly moved in opposite directions. The sports channel grew louder as he gruffly told me good night, and I moved up the stairs and to the shower with break-neck speed. Bathing standing up for two days had taken its toll on me, and trying to get the smell of my last evening out of my hair had been a challenge. If Charlie dared to get closer to me I'd be in trouble, so a shower it was.

The hot water felt heavenly until I turned around and it ran over the lacerations on my back. The stinging reminded me of the remaining conversations Jake and I had yet to have. What happened now? _Besides the trimming of obnoxiously long werewolf nails_, I laughed to myself. I realized he would probably be waiting for me in my room, and a wave of longing swept my body. _Too bad, old girl_, I smirked at myself, and I thought of my poor unsuspecting father's explicit wishes that I respect his property. Well, he hadn't mentioned Jake, specifically; in fact, he hadn't said anything about Jake and invitations at all. I deliberated getting dressed, shamed myself, and put on the pajamas I found from a couple nights ago. My body felt tender after the difficult weekend and the long, hot shower, and as I left the bathroom I realized Charlie had gone to sleep. The house was silent, except for the low rumbling snores from his bedroom. As before, I quietly closed the door, and was thankful for Jacob's superior hearing. We needed to figure out where we could meet that would respect Charlie, and in the meantime, I hoped to spare us all some embarrassment.

A futile hope, as it turned out.

Instead, I screamed as soon as I opened the door. The chase I witnessed was completely silent except for the shivering echoes of my scream—the glittering pulse whispering around my walls was barely faster than Jacob. The man-wolf sprung limberly across the room in milliseconds, but would it be fast enough? _She said we had a month, a month,_ my mind repeated numbly and from shock my hand fell, absently turning on the light—_it had been here with my _father_, but she said_--that's when they froze.

Jacob's scowling face and Edward's somewhat more pathetic expression greeted me from the low light in my room. I heard Jake swear roughly under his breath and then, so fast I knew any other human would have doubted their own eyes, they were gone.

"Bella!" Charlie was in my bedroom, pistol drawn, in his pajamas. He was breathing just as hard as I was, and I spun to face him with my own hands around my throat. _Lie, Bella,_ I swore to myself. The panic hadn't left me, and I tried to use the adrenaline to my advantage.

"Dad! I'm so sorry--I thought I saw a mouse, or something."

"Well, turn the damn lights up, Bells. You nearly gave me a heart attack." He gave me a look that would have made me laugh if anyone else were the recipient and fiddled with the dimming switch, deftly reholstering his gun with his other hand. In that moment I was so glad he hadn't seen Jake and Edward that I almost forgot I was on the verge of having a heart attack myself. We stared at each other while I took deep, slow breaths. "You sure you're alright, Bella?" He looked at me a little more closely, and I was again awash in gratitude—I had accidentally covered the brutal looking teeth marks with my hands.

"I'm okay, Dad, I'm just wiped out from this weekend. I'm not exactly a country girl." I surprised myself with the smooth lies coming out of my mouth; I'd gotten more accustomed to lying once I started working regularly. Customers had always been full of questions I didn't want to answer, and often took offense to a polite decline, no matter how well phrased; lying was a skill most waitresses cultivated to a greater or lesser degree. I'd never been good at it, so it was strange to find it so easy to deceive my father. _Maybe it's being back here_, I thought to myself, the panic numbing me; I had always been able to hide the most absurd and blatant truths under the guise of protecting people while I lived in Forks. I frowned momentarily because there were lots of other habits I didn't want to resurface from the past.

That was it. Jake and I needed to get out of this house. We couldn't stay here—and then I stopped short, reviewing what I'd seen. We couldn't do _anything_, if he was going to bring aggression and violence in to my life, I thought, and then the flame was lit. I could feel my horror and fear stirring together to create something new…_fury_. Small, but building, the fire prickled my belly and a very different blush rose on my cheeks.

The change of expression didn't escape Charlie. "Bella, did you and Jake…" his voice trailed off as he searched for words. I wasn't quite sure how to rescue him.

"We didn't fight, Dad, don't worry." I could feel myself momentarily brightening at the mention of Jake and I, and realized I didn't need to lie about that—not that details were necessary either, just that Charlie would be happy to hear about us. "In fact we—we kind of made up. I think we're kind of together now."

"Kind of?" He raised an eyebrow. I should have remembered that this was Charlie, not Phil, or Terrence or Renee. 'Kind of' would never be good enough for Charlie's daughter.

"We're together." I nodded my head, and he continued to watch me.

"Is this some boy-friend girl-friend thing?" He said it gruffly, but I could tell he meant well. I laughed at the terminology.

"Well, we're not really in high school any more," I said. "I guess at this point that's a safe way to put it, but it sounds silly." Silly or just…impermanent? Fear sparked in the flames, but I kept my smile from faltering.

"So…together, then."

"Yeah. Let's leave it at that."

He shrugged. "Makes it sound like you're starting a union or something," he muttered, but when he nodded at me I could see the corners of his eyes folding together, the glee behind them leaking out on to his face. I wanted to share his enthusiasm, but the problem that had brought him to my room in the first place was quickly resurfacing. I gave him my best _last-call-please-don't-forget-to-tip_ smile and shrugged.

"Sorry I scared you, Dad. I think I might just leave the light on, okay?"

He shrugged in return and moved towards the door. I couldn't believe how much my father had aged; as he walked away, his pistol peaceably removed from my eye, each step he took seemed to weigh more. New thoughts and old ones about aging stormed my mind again, mixing with the rest. My happiness was so tenuous—it seemed anything could take it away. My fragility…imprinting…time…my _humanity_, particularly since the partners I chose simply weren't…I waved to him one last time before he closed the door behind himself.

"You are both in serious trouble," I said in a low voice.


	30. Chapter 30

AN: Thank you guys again for the many kind reviews, just a sec to address some thoughts—there is indeed a much more graphic version of Chapter 28, but it still needs tweaking. It'll be part of the larger CYOA fic on my lj once this one is done (and I'm still unsure when that will be). I wrote all of it, nothing borrowed, and I really appreciate the reviews on that chap since it's still one of the ones I'm least comfortable with.

*****

"_You are both in serious trouble," I said in a low voice._ Anger saturated every syllable. "If there isn't an incredible reason for you to be here, Edward, than you are welcome to leave—and Jacob Black, you know me better than to think it would _ever_ be okay to start fighting in my bedroom." My eyes opened. They were both standing in front of me, visibly shaken. Edward's obsidian eyes stood out starkly in his white face; Jacob leered at him in menacing stance wavering somewhere between human and wolf while Edward's face was turned hopelessly towards mine. Even my threat hadn't gotten Jake's attention, and resentment fortified my anger.

"I apologize for my imprudent appearance," Edward began. His words were clipped, sparse. His pupil-less eyes raked my face, searching, searching, searching…Edward knew. He knew Jacob and I had been physical, had committed an act together that was forever denied him…at least with the one person he'd believed worthy of it, and we weren't even married no matter the charming current of our foreplay. But I didn't have time to indulge his archaic sense of propriety; I had nothing to apologize for. _What was wrong with them? How could they have behaved this way in my father's house?_ Jacob, I assumed, was just reacting to Edward's sudden and unannounced presence in my bedroom, but the mystery would have to wait. We couldn't talk here, not with Charlie so close by.

"Get out," I said again in my low, unfamiliar voice. I stared at Jake, who had not yet noticed. "Both of you."

That got his attention. He abruptly returned my stare, all the snarling and rippling muscles on his dense body suddenly pulled in my direction as if I'd become his center of gravity. I glared back at him. "What do you think this is," I said—"_high school_, or some parallel dimension where you can just ignore me and have pissing matches in my _bedroom_?" I looked back and forth between them, disgust choking me. "Do you really think _violence_ could solve this problem—or anything at all?"

"Bella, I am afraid you vastly underestimate the problem," Edward said, his voice as low as mine. Jacob's expression was devastated. He now hunched inward, reminding me of that first night and his submissive position when he thought I was rejecting him. The effect was alarming, but I found I was too enraged to care.

"I don't care about your reasons," I said. "Get out, both of you. _Now_."

"Bella," Edward exhaled deeply as I stood abruptly and pointed to the window. "Bella, love, _please_—we all three of us need to speak. Immediately."

"_Not. Here_." I was moving from anger to icy fury. I could already tell that Charlie's light was out in his room, and I tried to remember that I was the one who'd woken him last. If I kept my tone low, perhaps we could avoid him seeing….this. Whatever this was.

"She's not your love," Jacob hissed. His posture was now more of a crouch, and menace lined every word—I knew that voice. The beast in him uncoiled out of his chest, wicked and terrifying. But Edward did not disagree. He rapidly closed his eyes and turned his head as if he had been slapped; I saw that his fists were tightly balled. Jacob's jaws snapped. "_Get out of my mind_," he hissed again, and his body was suddenly low to the ground, preparing to pounce.

Edward still stared at me beseechingly with those black eyes, as though frozen. "Please," he whispered. Just then, Charlie's light came on.

Instead of speaking, I pointed resiliently towards the window, swinging my arm so hard the joint in my elbow clicked. When Jacob's face joined Edward's, flooded with suffering, I found myself slightly undone and snapped under my breath—"Downstairs, five minutes." I would need at least that long to cool off. Jacob watched Edward leave first through the open window, and then started to move towards me. One look at my face told him to go and he did.

I walked in to the hall at the same time Charlie started moving towards me from his room. "Sorry Dad," I said. I couldn't manage a smile. "I just scared myself earlier, I'm going to go down and watch some tv," I said. He nodded, looked at me strangely, and then went back in to his room. It was only eleven, I thought. I guess that was really late for the Bella in his memory.

I went in to the bathroom and sat down for a minute, collecting my thoughts. Damn them, both of them—I was not a child! I swore at Edward for his shaming stare and Jacob for his possessive antics. I didn't miss this—the treachery of being unsure of young love, of being too inexperienced to know what people meant or said beneath what they were saying. My head fell in to my hands, and I felt a few tears slip in. _You lost your chance, Edward_, I said to myself. I am not going to apologize for trying to have some semblance of normalcy now, so many years later…it's not wrong to want to be with Jake the human way. The modern way. Its not wrong.

And as for Jacob Black….I swore again, startling myself. I was finished with his moodiness. I was finished with the possessive, unpredictable behavior of the wolf, and he was going to have to choose which of us he wanted to spend the rest of his life with. And that was final.

The men were downstairs when I brought my body, still shaking, to the bottom of the stairs. Neither of them were sitting, instead warily watching me and ignoring each other as best they could, in spite of how their smells must have rankled each others' nerves. I stalked across the room and flipped the switch on the television, turning the volume to a reasonable, if slightly louder than usual level. I knew that Charlie would sleep through most anything…if he was ever able to actually fall asleep.

"I'm sorry," Jacob took a step towards me. I glared at him. Edward looked away from us both, as though we were doing something indecent. Again. Jacob continued on his hesitant trajectory towards me, slow and deliberate. Nothing seemed to be enough to compel Jacob to stop talking, and there was no shame in his voice as he began to repeat himself. I cut him off abruptly.

"Enough. We can talk about it later, Jake," I said, my hardness fading a bit by the time I said his name. It was difficult for me to stay angry with him when he apologized—but it had to change. Part of me was simply ashamed at my previous surety. I thought we were settled, I thought we were done—I told my father that we were together, we laughed about it…and now I felt like a fool. When had he actually said the words? If actions spoke louder, than we had a very confusing relationship. Jake and I desperately needed to settle some things, but not here, not now. Not in front of Edward, who was once again looking at me with a strangely ambivalent expression, as if he were grateful and bemused all at once. I glared back at him, and it faded in to wariness.

"Well," I heard myself say, and as Edward and I continued to look at each other I suddenly knew that he understood that I had seen his disapproval, and rejected it. Furthermore, I wasn't letting Jacob control me, and I wasn't going to let anyone. It struck me that part of what I was reacting to was Edward—not the man in front of me, here and now, but the one I had been so blindly in love with…the one who never left me alone, who never let me take risks, who refused to acknowledge that I might be capable of understanding the consequences of my actions…the one that Jacob had behaved exactly like earlier this evening. The fury inside of me once again felt like a volcano and I knew my emotions were storming across my face. Edward's eyes watched me curiously, and Jacob blinked rapidly and backed away again before the pale vampire slowly took his place in front.

"I also apologize, Bella," he said quietly. The music of his voice carried across the room in a different way than Jake's pleading tones. I felt his age in the words, as if each one were weighed down with long, lonely years. "There are urgent matters at hand, difficult decisions to be made…I wasn't thinking clearly when I made the decision to wait in your room."

"No, you weren't," I snapped. In the past, Jake might have looked cheerful, or at least interested in my outright refusal to sweep away Edward's flaws. Now, he looked at him bashfully, as though they were both young boys being scolded together. Still, it was better than the previous ferocity in the bedroom. Their odd unity helped to temporarily dismantle some of my rage. I sat down on the couch while they both stood, my very human bones clicking and popping with weariness all the way.

"Bella," Edward said again, and I saw the urge to come to my side sharply tug at him. I glowered in response and it relented, his body untensing, and his voice losing the subtle shiver. "Things have changed. A new development required that I speak to you immediately."

"Was your phone broken?" I continued to stare at him. "Were things going to change by tomorrow, magically?" My tone was vicious but ice began to trickle down my spine. What could it be? We knew the vampires were returning within a month. The horror grew in my stomach, and I knew the blood was leaving my face. Something far worse had just occurred to me….imprinting. I gasped. Both Jacob and Edward rushed towards me, and I held my hands out to stop them. They froze; Edward, ever the gentleman, slowly stood fully upright and took a step back. Jacob, once again brazen, came closer.

"Bells…." He tentatively reached out a hand to me, and I let him place it on my shoulder before I shook my head.

"What is it, Edward?" I stared at him. Jake's hand slipped from my body as he sat clumsily on the couch next to me. A deep hopelessness seized me; the wicked taste of the sea began to rise in my throat.

"One of the Denali clan has gone to the Volturi," he said.


	31. Chapter 31

AN: I don't want to explain too much—it ruins the fun of writing! I just hope you guys can be patient and let everything unwind…all the dots get connected (and the first ones are waaaay, way back in the beginning) in the end. Much love to reviewers! You guys are awesome.

*****

"_One of the Denali clan has gone to the Volturi," he said._ I waited to understand, for the salt and the mist to retreat, but they didn't. If Alice hadn't seen Jacob imprint and leave me…what could be worse? Edward's expression became thoughtful and intense as he read my face. I saw a flicker of something there I didn't recognize before he continued, and he took several small, gliding steps towards Jake and I as he spoke. I didn't immediately realize he was addressing Jacob.

"The pack attacked a vampire several years ago, while Bella was still in high school." The sentence ended flatly, and Jacob, still looking at me, shrugged. Even though his eyes raked over my body his nose twitched; I knew Jake was surveying Edward while attempting to appear otherwise preoccupied. I slid backward from him on the couch and narrowed my eyes. Edward continued, watching us. "This would have been soon after… I left Forks." My head whipped towards him. He looked back at me. Jacob growled.

"So what?" Even though Jacob was sitting on the couch with me, his spine was curved in a hard sickle, his limbs wide. He looked at Edward with his head cocked, and the long black hair I'd so lovingly combed hours before fanned across his face like a shadow. Edward refused to be intimidated.

"This vampire's name was Laurent." Both of their heads once again turned towards me as I gasped. Of course. Broken pairs…the Denali clan…I looked up at Edward and heard my normal voice, horrified, come tripping out of my mouth.

"The Volturi are the vampires in that painting of Carlisle's, aren't they?" Edward nodded, the line of his lovely mouth grim.

"Irina, in her grief, has decided to go to them. She met Victoria," here he turned from us and slowly searched his mind for details, "and the pair commiserated over their mutual grudge, in spite of differing lifestyle choices." His eyes returned to Jacob, the endless black inside of them scorching the space between the two men. "While Victoria thought a direct approach best—and considering her background, one can't be surprised she chose it—Irina contemplated other means of confrontation." He sighed. "When she heard of her friend's death, in addition to her lover's, she felt she had no choice." My mind ticked across the words restlessly until Jake's rough whisper interrupted.

"Who cares?" Jacob's voice was absurdly nonchalant; he leaned back on the couch as if he were relieved. "So more vampires show up and do what? Try to _bight _us?" A slow smile trickled across his face, becoming brighter with each word. "That's what they _do_—and here's the thing, what we do is _stop_ them. No biggie." As his gaze returned to my face the smile dimmed and he sighed. "Am I acting like an idiot again?"

"Yes," I whispered, and while I knew Jacob was technically right I also knew things had to be worse if Edward was here. His lovely face was turned once again towards Jacob, but a seething disdain glowered across it. Jacob raised an eyebrow, stretching his long legs out. He clearly thought the worst had passed.

"I am hardly interested in deliberately intruding on your courtship, Jacob Black," Edward hissed. Jake, still largely unaffected by the dramatic scenario facing the pack, just rolled his eyes and slouched further in to the couch. My mind ridiculously wondered if Charlie would really be so upset to find him there in the morning before I snapped back to the present.

"Give it a rest, both of you," I sighed. "Edward, what does this mean?" The ice in my spine began to lock around my ribs; I remembered this feeling, the vicious fear that blocked all reason and sense from the mind, eventually eclipsing even pain. I could tell the numbness was setting in. They were coming. They were the most powerful, ancient vampires in the world, and they were about to be informed of the pack—I literally could not fathom the consequences.

But Edward could. I saw it in the drawn hollow of his cheeks, the way he'd refused to chance missing us and came here, knowing he'd be hurt by Jacob's wandering mind. Panic. Edward was panicking, in the only sickeningly inhuman way he could. We locked eyes and I stared in to the depths there. "It means they are going to exterminate the pack," he whispered, and the sudden white told me he had closed his eyes. Jacob's hushed whisper tore my gaze away from Edward's face.

"Impossible." He was standing again, so swiftly, a breeze blew across me. He stared down at Edward, his chest beginning to move rapidly as his heart picked up speed. The long muscles in his forearms shifted as his hands clenched and began to tremble.

"You don't understand how powerful they are," Edward whispered. "_I _don't understand how powerful they are." Deafening silence filled each space between us until the television, suddenly noticeable, became jarring. Edward incongruously shook his head, his expression livid and his eyes locked on Jacob's shadowed face. "Foolish! It won't work—neither will work, there are not enough of you—not enough of _us_." His emphasis on the last word stilled Jacob's shaking fists; clearly, their conversation was once again challenging his temper, but the offer of an alliance was calming. Edward watched him before he continued. "Of course we would fight with you." He nodded. "With _her_."

"How can you be sure everyone would?" My question was sincere; Rose had never held me in high esteem, and I hadn't even seen Carlisle or Esme yet, let alone Emmett and Jasper.

"We've already spoken about it," Edward said, and the hard line of his mouth told me he would not divulge the details of what was sure to have been a messy discussion. "We are confident fighting is not the best option available to us."

"Why not?" Jacob loomed in the corner, the dim light of the television dancing over his brutal body. He'd silently slipped further away from Edward and I, presumably to better control himself. The temporary lapse in animosity towards Edward did nothing to diminish the feverish energy rippling away from him, as his hands began to shake again.

"The Volturi would vanquish us easily. They have many warriors among them with special talents—talents that make my own look like an infantile parlor trick. Without Alice, they would be able to kill us all without warning." He moved his crystalline head to look at both of us, and I realized I'd stopped breathing. "Carlisle has already left to try to reason with them. It was, unfortunately, too late to intercept Irina."

I thought of the Denali coven, trying to recall the dim details Edward had provided me so long ago. Sisters, living in Alaska as vegetarians…that was all. I thought of the one making her way to Italy as we spoke here in my living room, and the suffering she had endured. Would I have chosen her way? Or would I have fought like Victoria to avenge the death of my lover? Could I be angry at someone who had her life wretched away from her, knowing the suffering it had caused me to lose Edward…and seeing how fragile my happiness with Jake really was? What if…what if someone tried to take him away from me? I didn't dwell further on the thought after I realized that was exactly what was happening.

I looked at Jacob. I knew that he understood Victoria's motives better than I could; I'd never be a warrior. My memory jolted when I recalled the bumpy, Emmett-bound flight from the baseball field where I'd first seen her—I wasn't a warrior like Victoria, but I _was_ capable of strategy. I'd first proved it then when I created an impromptu plan to save my father, and proved it again two nights ago. What had Leah said? Something about battle strategy… _Leah._ I needed to speak to her. Immediately.

"Edward, we need to speak to the pack. Right now." He looked at me with the same curiosity from earlier crumpling his ivory brow, but his body language reflected a cautious refusal. I cut him off and heightened the urgency in my voice. "This isn't about Jake and I, Edward, it's about all of them—the entire Quileute tribe. We can't sit around my living room and decide their fate without them." The look on his face changed again, and the core of my argument surfaced between us, rocky and loud. "You can't choose for them, Edward." He stared at me.

Jacob seemed visibly calmed, suddenly completely and utterly still; his hands opened. I registered the change with a sigh although I didn't understand what I'd said to cause it. The second of relief retreated as my irritation struggled with the icy fear in my chest. "Let's go! Now." I stood, and it felt better than crumbling in to a ball, even though that's what my heart really wanted to do.

"What about Charlie, Bella?" Edward's voice was gentle, but the strange look in his eyes hadn't left; Jacob was once again in control and stepped forward from the shadows to stand beside Edward, his face mirroring the concern on his rival's.

"I'll tell him I missed Jake," I said curtly, and moved to shuffle past them to the front door. My knees shook but I kept walking until Jake snagged me with a long arm.

"Does he know—will that make sense?" His worry at this moment was heart-breakingly sweet. So much underlay the question: does he know about us? _ What_ does he know about us? And then, the tension of everything we had yet to decide lay before me once again. Jacob must have been outside when I spoke to Charlie; perhaps a quick run to calm himself down. I shrugged, trying to rid myself of every thought but the task at hand. Jake's eyes lingered on me, trailing down my body from where his hand had landed, and Edward abruptly left, the air whistling as he went. "Maybe you should change, Bella," Jake said softly. "If you come back in pajamas I don't think he'll like it." His broad, beautiful mouth was tilted towards me, but I backed away as abruptly as Edward had fled. Hurt flushed on Jake's face.

"Go wait outside, I'll be right there," I said. We had managed to keep the volume down all night, so I worked to keep my voice steady and low. In spite of everything that had happened, it was useless to deny that I was still furious with both of them.

"I'm going to phase," he spoke in a rumbling monotone. "I'll meet you in La Push with the pack at Emily's restaurant." I didn't turn around, instead going strait up the stairs as quietly and quickly as I could.


	32. Chapter 32

_I didn't turn around, instead going strait up the stairs as quietly and quickly as I could. _In truth, I didn't trust myself to speak again; I didn't want to wound Jacob any more now than I had when I'd first arrived—if it were possible, I wanted to even _less,_ now that so much had passed between us. Remembering the days right after he first learned he was a wolf brought tears to my eyes while I dug through my closet. I didn't want to replay any of those vicious scenes so many years later, with so much more at stake.

I scribbled an awkward note to Charlie; it was midnight, and I knew he wouldn't get it for many more hours, but it still frightened me to leave him. The fear was two fold, even though I shrugged off the conventional shudders of a daughter leaving home late at night. I was an adult, and if I explained that I was going to La Push I didn't need to elaborate. He'd rather I didn't anyway. When I'd dragged myself in to some clean clothes, I placed the note on the kitchen table and went out the front door to find Edward standing there. The adolescent in his build struck me, the porch light setting off an array of dimmed rainbows on his skin. Our eyes locked. We sighed simultaneously, and then laughed.

He looked down at his feet; it was a strangely youthful thing for him to do, and I wasn't used to it. When he looked at me again, the curiosity on his face was fit to burst. In fact, had he been able, a blush might have graced the luminous edge of his diamond hard cheeks. Instead he merely looked at me.

"What is it, Edward?" I didn't know whether or not he was about to chasten me for being physical with Jacob, but I assumed now that we were alone it would be best to clear the air before the meeting. I protectively wrapped my arms around my body and tried to focus on the anger that had buoyed me through the previous conversation, dismissing my momentary reprieve as I'd taken in his angelic beauty.

"You are so unlike who you were, Bella," he whispered. A long moment passed before I recognized the undertone of his gaze…it was _awe_. Edward was looking at me with awe. "I hadn't fully realized before how much you've changed."

"Was this a test, Edward?" My brow wrinkled as I drew closer to him, trying to decipher the myriad of expressions rushing across his face. "Were you checking to see whether or not…" I trailed off, not sure how to complete the thought. He looked at me wearily, and then gazed out at the yard.

"Not a test, Bella, no. I did not come here expecting open arms—perhaps, of course, I hoped," and here he turned towards me and I saw the familiar brightness of his smile. "But no. When I knew what was happening I became….afraid, Bella, as I am want to do…and I over-reacted a bit." His expression was suddenly hardened. "I would have been more careful, of course, if I'd realized the…depth…of the bond between yourself and Jacob Black." He refused to look at me again, staring instead at the tree line where the conflict between them had begun several nights ago.

"I'd appreciate it if you didn't use that tone with me, Edward," I said evenly. He still did not turn to look at me, but I noticed his lip quiver almost imperceptibly.

"Perhaps you misinterpret my tone," he said softly. "He doesn't think in words, most of the time, Bella…It's almost impossible to interpret what comes through his mind. Let us suffice it to say that what I cannot hear, I _see_. And I am not so much a saint that it doesn't make me sick with jealousy." His eyes were still locked on the dark, and then a strangely sad smirk appeared. "Perhaps you thought I judged you? Old fashioned as I am?" His cocked eyebrow greeted me when he finally turned his head, and the bitterness in his face was overwhelming. "No. I am not so great a man as that. I am merely a jealous ex-boyfriend, wishing for a fraction of the wealth another man possesses."

I looked at him carefully. It wasn't what I expected, and truthfully, were I not so angry I would be both humiliated and saddened by the circumstances; any image of my intimate moments with Jacob playing out in front of Edward was torturous for us both. But the word he'd used triggered my earlier feelings, even if I now realized some of my reaction was unwarranted.

"He doesn't _possess_ me, Edward. He's not a damn demon. And I'm not a some cheap, scratch-off lottery ticket." My nostrils flared. Edward laughed, a bright lilting sound, and as we both realized--too late--how loud it was, we rushed off of the porch. I noticed he was still staring at me as he opened the door to the car, but it took me a minute to recognize that he wasn't still smiling. A weak imitation of the previous grin met me as he took his seat and turned the key, the ignition eerily silent compared to my truck's belligerent roar.

"You are not the girl I loved, Bella. But you should know…you eclipse her in every way." His eyes once again turned towards the road. "And no matter what Jacob Black may think—or even what _you_ may think—you will _always_ be my love…even if time reveals more and more how ill matched we are." We rode in silence until the Volvo—still shiny, still silver, but a new and unfamiliar model--slowed to a stop in front of Emily's restaurant. I knew what Edward said was true, but in particular I was grateful for the subtle acknowledgement of the fact that we did not belong together. I couldn't regress in to a girl that swooned. I still blushed but I wouldn't be lead any longer. If Edward knew it, then Jacob had to as well.

The restaurant was dark, and without the supernatural night vision of my companion, I knew I would have been sprawled on the floor and nursing bruises in seconds. There were no lights on, but somehow I knew that the pack was already present, and then a startling shimmer moved towards me from the shadows.

"What took you so long?" Alice's voice wasn't as chipper as I'd hoped. Being alone among the wolves must have been hard for her. Her cool hands twisted into mine and I let myself be lead through the obstacle course of the main dining room back to the small room. Whispers crept towards me from the darkness.

"Hey-hey-hey vampire girl," Quil's raucous voice bellowed from the corner, and suddenly the whispers hushed. The gentle sound of a switch being flipped gave me just a seconds preparation before I was blinded and simultaneously overwhelmed by a dozen more catcalls and disgruntled shouts.

"Jeez, Paul, a warning would be nice!" Embry shielded his eyes and scowled fiercely at the hulking frame standing alarmingly close to me. For a minute Paul didn't look at me; I knew that he'd turned on the light to annoy everyone and could've cared less about my lack of night vision. He shot me a sly grin just as his hand flew up and caught the plate sailing at his head from across the room. Quil swore loudly and several of the smaller boys laughed. A cool hand slid around me and yanked me down just as another plate shattered over my head. Suddenly the air seemed full of napkins, knives and forks. Edward and Alice hovered protectively over me and then everything stopped—everything but the wicked growls ripping through the air like a cold wind.

Jacob arrived with Leah, and the pair of them made a formidable two person army. Leah's shrill voice sliced across the room, and every single one of the huge men in her pack dropped their heads simultaneously. "Human present, geniuses!" She ripped a plate out of the hands of one of the smallest wolves and he whimpered and slunk away. Seconds behind them, Sam's body filled the door, and the hush became funereal. I was suddenly aware of Jacob's heat behind me, as if by magic. Edward surrepticiously appeared by Alice's other shoulder. I was flanked by supernatural angels.

"Sorry Bella." Quil looked at me anxiously from the corner of his eye. I grinned and saw Edward roll his eyes.

"No harm, no foul," I said. In truth, it wasn't the first time I'd been in a restaurant after hours—I'd seen cutlery fly before, if not with the same intensity and precision. I thought to myself that if I'd been in any real danger Edward would have just physically removed me, and then realized with Jacob around that probably wasn't the wisest option.

Sam sat down and suddenly everyone else was sitting except for myself and the two vampires. I leaned against the wall and felt Jacob move further back, out of my way. I knew the war council had begun, and a wistful part of me wished that we could return to the joviality of a moment ago. A part of me shivered as I registered Jacob's heat close to my left side, and I closed my eyes and dreamed of being somewhere else, in some other time, entirely. Reality tore in to me as I heard Edward's slippery, musical voice fill the room with the horrible news he'd told Jacob and I so recently.


	33. Chapter 33

AN: Hey guys, some big news: I am a nerd, and I live in Hawai'i. This month I am transplanting to the mainland for grad school—a very difficult, elaborate process that will steal me away from this story for at least a week (or three). Don't panic! I will try and leave things at a solid point before the break, and when I am settled (I mean, as much as I will be) I will return to daily updates. Take care until then--

Reality tore in to me as I heard Edward's slippery, musical voice fill the room with the horrible news he'd told Jacob and I so recently.

The wolves reacted predictably; Leah rolled her eyes, Embry studied Edward's face, and Quil yelled "Bring it!" There were a couple of high fives and another brief scuffle between the youngest wolves as Edward shook his head and looked at Sam pleadingly. It would have been hilarious to me if I hadn't felt the same way. Sam took in Alice and I's grave expressions and then looked past us to Jacob.

"Jake, why do we care about this?" I swear I thought Edward was about to smack his forehead with his palm.

I didn't turn my head, but I felt the warmth of his breath on my shoulder. He was extremely close to me, but trying to remain unobtrusive. "To be honest…it's because all of the people that know anything about vampires are really, really freaked out by this. And because the word 'exterminate' came in to play." It didn't escape anyone that he'd just called the Cullens 'people.' Quil was too shocked to close his mouth, and Embry's broad forehead developed a crease deep enough to sink quarters in it. They weren't alone; hadn't Jacob been ready to rip Edward to pieces in my living room less than half an hour ago? The unfairness of his instability latched on to my fears like an unwelcome hitchhiker. Could this really work, when he was constantly two living creatures—my beautiful, thoughtful and generous Jacob, and the instinctual brute of the wolf? If I had to live with them both, could I do it? My heart seized, and when I raised my eyes I saw Leah's locked on mine. A final horrifying thought greeted me: what if I compromised, gave up so much of the self I'd made to accept him as he was now, and then….he imprinted?

"I don't think we understand the gravity of the situation," Leah murmured. Sam's tone previously had been lightly curious but a twinge impolite; he had left his warm bed and Emily to be here. Leah, on the other hand, probably spent the night prowling La Push, and she knew me better now. She saw something in my face that made her anxious.

Some of my fear was still a reaction to the pack being faced with adversarial vampires. I knew—had seen—the strength of the pack, but an organized army of vampires was very different from the frenetic, grieving crowd they'd fought this weekend. And Jake and Leah had still come too close to dying for comfort, in my opinion. They underestimated taking on the Volturi, but I didn't know how to explain why when some of the details escaped me too.

"Edward," I began, and I felt Jake shrink backwards again. "Why don't you tell us some of the things you told me…before?" When I turned my head I didn't see Edward immediately; I was struck instead by the beleaguered look on Alice's face as her eyes ticked back and forth. With a start, I realized Jasper was behind her, only the dimmest glow from the light trickling across his iridescent skin. I should have known he wouldn't have left her here alone, and realized when we arrived he must have been lingering in the dark as well. The gold in his eye turned towards me just as Edward addressed him.

"With my father gone, my brother is actually the closest thing we have to an authority on the Volturi," Edward murmured. "He's seen them engage in this kind of…attack…before." Edward moved further back in to the shadows as Jasper took his place beside Alice. She looked like a frail, tiny doll, all but her eyes still as she leaned against the wall.

Jasper made the wolves uncomfortable. A small wave of movement started among the young ones as they shivered away from him, an almost imperceptible migration in the opposite direction. I wondered why; the only interaction they'd ever had had been friendly, or at least unfriendly in the same direction. He gazed round at them unblinkingly and suddenly the movement stilled.

"When I was a much younger man," he said in a low but carrying voice, "I was a soldier." No one moved or spoke. "Without going in to too much unnecessary detail, let me just say that there is only one rule among vampires—secrecy. In the south, many years ago, there was a bit of a problem following that rule."

"What do you mean?" Sam seemed less affected by the somber tones of Jasper's voice, and his question cut through the spell. Leah shook her head and spoke up too.

"Yeah, Colonel Sanders--unnecessary details are usually the best part of any story."

A wry smile crossed Jasper's eerily perfect face. "They fought for territory—for feeding grounds." Leah and Sam wore matching grimaces, and Jasper continued. "A popular strategy was to create armies of newborn vampires and use them to shut down an existing dominant battalion or take over new territories." Jasper's melodies were darker then either Alice's or Edward's. As I watched him, I began to see some similarities to Embry in his language and approach, but a crushing sadness lay underneath the tactical words. "They lost control of their armies. Young vampires are, by nature, difficult to control, and eventually the Volturi were called in."

"Called in?" Leah's forehead wrinkled. "By who?"

"Not completely sure," Jasper responded softly. "They're considered a sort of…police force. They enforce the agreement of silence."

"So they called themselves in." Leah's eyes narrowed.

"You might say that," Jasper allowed, and shrugged gently. "We'll never know. But they rid the vampire world of the southern battles, and for that many were thankful. Their power is largely due to the fact that they regulate our world. They're thought of as a force for good."

"Because they exterminate _threats_? Threats like _us_?" Her eyes stayed small, flicking back and forth between the three vampires in front of her. Sam crossed his arms in front of his wide chest.

"Yes. They are extremely powerful, well organized, and most importantly, they have never, ever lost." Jasper nodded one last time as he took a step backwards in to the shadows, and the tension in the room erupted. The wolves were suddenly panicked, and the young ones shook so hard that parts of the room appeared blurred. Sam's voice suddenly echoed across them with a boom.

"No phasing!" Everyone was still, with the occasional twitch or whimper still eeking out. The strange calm Jasper's speech had elicited wasn't there but the pack clearly was past the brief but overwhelming fear his words gave them, and their absurd elation at the prospect of a war was long gone. I startled to realize that Jake's warm arms were wrapped protectively around me, reacting only when I felt him pull away. I knew he hadn't wanted the room full of young werewolves to hurt me if they phased. The same wistful part of me that longed for our last night wished they would stay as I felt them withdraw. "What does this mean for us?" Sam's voice was all seriousness now. The alpha in him darkened the room. Leah stood beside him, and they both leaned towards the vampires across the table.

"It will be useless to fight," Edward said, his head hanging. "Bella said to come to the whole pack immediately with this news, and considering it will probably mean a relocation, and dispersement of the pack—"

"Why?" Leah's hard voice cut across the room. "We didn't break their _one rule_. That doesn't make any sense." Count on Leah's whip smart mind to cut to the quick of the argument. Jasper and Edward looked at one another before he moved to speak again.

"Perhaps several other factors intrude with that obvious logic," he said, and with the briefest glance at Alice he looked out over the pack again. "We are not entirely sure of the scope of their motives, but the very fact that your community exists—an entire subset of a larger culture—may be enough to move them to invade. You know about us," Edward said, "and worse, you have engaged in something of a crusade against us, potentially drawing more attention to our existence indirectly." I thought of the 'animal attacks' Victoria had engaged in while I was in high school—was that really enough to get the Volturi here and now? It didn't seem like it. I watched Alice's eyes as Edward continued. "They also have…something of a grudge against what they call "the children of the moon." My mind wandered in the silence that followed.

They didn't know why they were really coming. The Cullens knew why Irina had gone to them, and they knew what the Volturi intended to do once they got here…but their motives were still unclear, even to Alice. Why would the Volturi come for the pack—was a grudge really enough?


	34. Chapter 34

_Why would the Volturi come for the pack—was a grudge really enough?_

Sam's voice once again dominated the room. "There will be no dispersement. There will be no relocation." He glared at Edward. "Do you understand what the purpose of a reservation_ is_?" His eyes meaningfully turned towards the smallest wolves in the room and then returned to the Cullens. "Our tribe belongs here, where our ancestors have lived for thousands of years—in spite of everything that has happened to us, our people have lived and died here and we will live and die here, and that is _final_." The quivering children watched him with wide, dark eyes, returning to the room at large only when Edward's velvety retort cruelly ripped back across the room.

"Then you will die here, and all your lineage be destroyed." Black eyes stared out of his white face. "We will do everything we can, but if you choose to end yourselves, there is nothing else we can do." His nostrils were flared wide as he waited for his words to take effect. Leah cocked her head; I knew what was coming before she even opened her mouth.

"Why do you even care, bloodsucker? Is this about us, or just _her_?" One of her eyebrows spiked at the mention of me, and I suddenly became aware of Jacob's heat behind me once again. The glance in my direction gave Edward away.

"I've told you everything I'm obligated to," he whispered, and just like that, his jaw fell open and raw shock registered on his face. I realized his hand was resting on Alice's shoulder at the same time she turned towards the room.

"They're not after you," she said in a flat voice—a dead voice. Edward's words rushed out at her.

"He read his mind—" she nodded, her head jerking loosely on her neck. Jasper's hands appeared around her, holding her upright. A ripple quaked through the small wolves, but they held still. Jasper looked as anxious for news as any of them.

"What's going on?" This time the voice was Jacob's. His was deeper and rougher than all of the others combined, and the timber of it startled me and made me ache. In the face of so much adversity it was getting harder and harder to remember why I was so angry with him.

"They're using you as leverage," Edward said, his voice as monotone and broken as his sister's. "They have no genuine interest in killing any of you besides yourself, Jacob Black, and that is the true reason they are coming—to use you to get to…me. But then, the real prize is Alice." He frowned, and I tried to piece together the complicated string of words. My shock was getting in the way.

"That doesn't make any sense," Leah countered.

"They will require me to trade my life for the pack's—they do not intend to let you live, Jacob. But the rest of the pack may continue, if I become a member of their guard." Here, he turned towards his diminutive sister, her face as numb with terror as his. "For aiding and abetting you, they will require Alice. To keep them from slaughtering our family."

"This doesn't make any sense!" Leah snarled. Sam's arms remained crossed, but Leah's composure slipped as she leaned further across the table, her posture pleading and her expression fierce. "From what you told us, none of this fits with that whole 'rule of silence' thing!" She stood upright, hands in fists still on the table. "Like someone isn't going to notice if they wipe out our whole tribe—like frigging Custer or something! Why would they break their own rule like that?"

"You misunderstand," Edward said, his face pointing downwards. "The problem no longer belongs to your tribe. You are invisible to Alice," here he swept his arm as if to imply collectively, "so we are interpreting a rather opaque future. But it seems it was all a ruse. Once they saw the members of our family…our weaknesses….and our strengths…" He looked her in the eye then, the granite face painted in such numbing sorrow I felt my heart swell. "Of course I will join their guard. I would not see an end to your people on my behalf. When we didn't understand—we didn't know what they truly sought—we offered our protection. I would hardly rescind it now when the means are so much more simple." His dead face found Jacob's. "You will have to run, Jacob. Before their tracker knows your mind well enough to find you. Before he can take you from _her_. They have no intention of letting you live, no matter the lies they tell." The anguish in his tone was too much—my knees gave out. Both men reached for me, but hot hands held me aloft.

"No, Edward—" I began, but Leah cut me off.

"What does joining their guard mean for you? What kinds of things are you going to have to do?"

"It's slavery," erupted Jasper suddenly. His arms were now wrapped completely around Alice, their slender bodies shamelessly twined together with her face buried in his chest. The vulnerable position was so uncharacteristic of them that it said more than any of the words that had passed. "They're going to use them to carry out the kind of horrible things they would have done here…it's criminal," snarled Jasper. He looked at Edward. "We'll run. Carlisle just saw them, there's no way they can get here before we can—"

"You would have fought for us?" Sam's voice silenced everything. "Before you knew that your family was the real target, you would have fought for us? You spoke of dispersement, making us leave…"

"I cannot make you do anything," whispered Edward, and his eyes found my face. "As Bella reminded me, I have no right to decide another's fate. And you should understand, they do not value your lives. They will welcome any opportunity to kill you. Still—we have told you all we know, offered all we have." I saw a movement out of the corner of my eye, and realized Jacob had almost reached out to Edward. I was sure he saw. It was too much for either man to move further.

"Then you won't object if we don't let you get sold in to slavery for us, either," Leah said evenly. She looked at Jasper and Alice appraisingly. "I don't think you have _any_ idea what a reservation really is," she added in a lower voice, and I could tell that her point was different than Sam's. He was looking at her now with an steely expression on his face. A new sort of tension filled the room; the wolves were suddenly no longer paying attention to the vampires.

"We need to talk about this," Sam said. He didn't seem as convinced as Leah that benevolence towards the Cullens was their duty. Instantly, there was movement—young wolves wiggled, their thin muscular bodies flying back and forth across the room as they chattered animatedly, and the larger warriors glaring at each other in stony silence. Edward didn't even look at them, and turned towards Jacob instead.

"They will leave immediately." Alice looked at me from Jasper's protective grasp, listening to Edward's words. "With a head start—"

"Don't." Leah was next to us now, standing closest to me. I could tell the smell was bothering her in spite of her efforts. "Give us half a day, noon at least, to think of a plan. Something less…drastic." A look of disgust crossed her handsome features as she leaned a little closer to Edward and said, "there is always more than one way to solve a problem. And we did contribute to this one. And you helped save us then." Her eyes went up to Jake's. "Sorry, Jake. Embry was right—we didn't know." He shrugged awkwardly, and she was leaving to go to Sam's side just as suddenly. I realized the room was emptying around us. Alice squeezed my arm, but I grabbed at Leah.

"Leah, I want to talk to you. Soon." She looked deeply in to my eyes for a minute and then nodded firmly. I knew she would confer with Sam first, but find me when she could. When she did I hoped I had a plan of my own to offer. Alice's hand became a little more insistent.

"Twelve hours is as much time as we can possibly wait," she said, and then a slight smile appeared. "But, it'll allow us to say goodbye to Carlisle in person." Her grief was powerful, altering even the gold in her eyes. I shook my head.

"Leah's right—there is always more than one solution. Always. You should know that better than anyone, Alice."

"It hasn't changed yet," she whispered, and I kissed her cheek before Jasper lead her away. Edward turned to go and I grabbed his hand.

"This isn't over, Edward." I took his fingers, completely aware that Jake and I were the last ones left. Edward's glistening lids hid his black eyes from me while he absorbed my heat for a moment. The cool fingers of his other hand gently encased mine before he released himself.

"Twelve hours," he replied in a dull, hopeless voice. And then he was gone. Nothing filled the room but the suddenly vibrant and unignorable tension between Jacob and I.


	35. Chapter 35

Jacob moved around me to sit by the table, and it suddenly occurred to me how big this room was without the entire pack inside of it. The light seemed dusky without all of their bright voices echoing back and forth, and the comforting rumble and heat of their bodies. The discussion had lasted little more than an hour; it was two o'clock in the morning. A kernel of hope that I would get home to Charlie and he would never know I'd been gone appeared, and then dimmed as I took in Jacob.

He was very still, his wide brown hands laid open and flat on the table. He looked at me from under the black shadow of his brow, and the only evidence of his breathing was the slow rise and fall of his shoulders. I knew him now--I knew the _wolf_ now. He was deliberately posing as human. Deliberately trying to remind me that he knew he was, and would always be, a man.

It didn't quite work. The long, tapered nails ending in sharp points painted a very different picture, one his gaunt cheeks and scarred body did nothing to render false. Even the way he breathed—his slow, human movements seemed forced to me. Everything underneath the satiny skin could disappear, even the reason and imagination in his mind, all replaced by the monster I'd met in the corner of my bedroom.

And then he lifted his head—just a sliver—and the light fell on his eyes. Warm, dark, rich with the man I loved. I saw the future in his eyes.

But was it a lie? Another myth I made, like the one I'd created around Edward and I so long ago? My heart wasn't afraid of making a fool of me, but I didn't know if I could survive it twice; the woman I was now wouldn't grow and change as much as the girl I'd been then. I felt myself choking on the sea and crossed my arms over my traitorous chest, buckling a bit before I righted my body and deliberately looked at him again. His hands were clenched. He knew when I was in pain.

"I love you," he said quietly. The words flew like a bullet into the dark recess beginning at my sternum. He never blinked, the warm irises altering everything else about how dangerous he seemed.

"I know, Jake," I said. My own hands shook, and I tucked them further in against my sides, hoping he wouldn't notice and knowing he could smell everything he couldn't see—the rise in pulse, the spike of adrenaline in my perspiration. I knew I would need to sit down if I wanted to seem calm, but I just wasn't ready to. I wasn't ready to be calm.

"Why are you so mad at me, Bella?" He still hadn't blinked. It was such a strange difference from the typically roaming eyes from before that I almost commented on it, but I focused on the question and exhaled deeply.

"Why were you chasing Edward around my bedroom?" Jacob answered with no hesitation.

"Because he was _in your bedroom_." The last words rung out like distant thunder, menacing and bleak.

"You have no right to act like that about anybody being in my bedroom, Jake—you have no right to come to my dad's and endanger him, to make a spectacle just because you feel insecure!" I realized I was panting. My hands had reached out before I noticed and braced against the table so that I was slightly closer to his face, the face I loved so much. _Could he understand?_ I didn't want to tell him that Edward had watched me sleep every night, that he wouldn't let me go anywhere, do anything, that he'd decided might be dangerous…I didn't want to tell him because I was ashamed of how much I'd loved it when I was younger. I didn't want to admit that it had taken me years to know that wasn't love.

"I have no right?" Suddenly Jake was standing too, leaning towards me with his lips curling. I didn't back down even as his shadow blocked the light from above, and the rage creeping in to his voice was terrifying. "There's another man in your bedroom, and I have _no right_ to react at all?"

"No!" I wanted to slap him, to shake him, to be strong enough to act _like him_. "He's not some guy, Jake, he's the guy I turned down to be with you!" Our faces were inches apart, the tension crackling between us like lightning. Jacob's shook, and I knew he could hear my heart pounding loudly. His words crept out from behind clenched teeth.

"How am I supposed to know you're really with me when your vampire ex is lurking in your bedroom, Bella? What am I supposed to think?"

"That's the thing, Jake—_you're supposed to think_." My mouth snapped loudly shut, the teeth clapping against each other. "Like a human. Not just react, like…like—"

"Like what," he growled. "Like a dog?" His voice was icy and low now, and out of the corner of my eye I saw that his nails were digging in to the wood of the table, sinking through it like knives through butter.

"Yes," I whispered. There was an explosive crack, and before I realized what was happening the air was full of tiny shredded pieces of wood. Jake had turned and thrown the chair he'd been sitting in against the wall, shattering the heavy pine like fragile glass with so much force I hadn't seen it happen. He stood facing away from me and towards the wrecked chair, his massive shoulders heaving as his entire frame blurred. My body involuntarily began to shake with fear—and worse, I knew he would smell it, and know.

"Dogs are loyal," he growled. His voice was strange—fighting his transformation made the words thick and surreal. He refused to look at me, continuing to stare at the shards of wood littering the floor in front of him. "You've never been especially loyal, Bella—it's not one of the qualities you're known for—"

"You have no right to say that," I gasped in horror. If he'd wanted to frighten me, to hurt me, he'd succeeded. My mind replayed a dozen rebuttals, throwing them all away as I scoured myself for disloyalty and felt the sting of shame. _How dare he make this about me--_

"If anyone has the right, I have the right!" Jacob's face was once again inches away from me—I hadn't thought it possible, but my heart pounded even harder, and instead of fighting the urge to smack him I fought the urge to run. My body startled backwards and my anger dissipated into outright fear; his hair swung wildly around his head as his shoulders shook like a human earthquake, the air filled with his hot, gasping breath. I couldn't see his eyes but behind the mask of his hair I saw his mouth, a feral scowl marring the lips I loved. "If you can have your goddamn vamp over for sleep overs than I have every goddamn right to chase him!"

"Listen to yourself, Jake," I whispered. "Do you really doubt me? You know why he was there—he wasn't there for me! You know why—just think about it—"

"I _am_ thinking, Bella!" He threw his head back, his eyes tightly closed, and I saw tiny drops of blood on the table from where his nails cut in to his palms as he balled his fists. "I am trying and trying _and thinking and thinking_—about him in your room—and _this---this_ is what it does to me—"

"You're _not_ thinking then, damn it!" I couldn't keep the rigid sob out of my voice. "You're _not_ thinking about last night, you're _not_ thinking about how much I love you—I am loyal, Jake…" I sobbed openly between the words. "I am _so damn loyal_ that…I will stay with you…until you leave me." I couldn't stand any more, my knees giving out as I crumpled in to the seat, my head hitting the table. "_I will stay until you imprint," _I gasped out, and the choking darkness in my chest rippled and flexed like poison, salt and ruin filling my mouth.

I stayed that way for what felt like years, lost in grief and humiliation. My rage was spent. So many things that I knew Forks held, lingering beneath the brightness of my brief comfort, raked across my heart: the pain of losing everyone who had ever loved me, in any true, benevolent way; the curse of never knowing what I wanted until it was too late; the endless difficulty of being a human surrounded by non-mortals. Jacob would have to leave me, I realized. No amount of wondering when or pretending otherwise or even love would keep it from coming. I hated the wolf in him for many reasons, particularly when they mimicked the things I'd hated about Edward….but I hated the wolf for imprinting most of all.


	36. Chapter 36

…_.but I hated the wolf for imprinting most of all._

I felt the arms lift me from the chair as if I weighed nothing, and I knew they were his by their heat. Only a slight tremor went through them now as he cradled me to him, tucking my head beneath his chin and using a careful hand to brush my hair back. I didn't have the strength to move, but I listened when he spoke.

"I've been very cruel to you, Bella," he began. It was the soft voice I'd heard only one other time, so delicate and full of rasps I had to concentrate to listen over the sound of my own choking breaths. "I'm never going to leave you. My imprint is dead." He squeezed me when I thrashed against him, letting my hands fall where they may, and I felt his tears on my neck as he bent his head against me. "I'm sorry," he finished, and continued to hold me close, letting my rage descend like the tide. It was only a moment before it was replaced by relief, and the look of surprise on his face when I stopped flailing my arms and wrapped them around him instead almost made me smile. Almost.

I sat on his lap, straddling his waist with my legs dangling down either side of the chair. We were both a mess; Jake's hair was still wild and tangled, and I could feel the blotchy, embarrassing patches of red on my face from crying. I felt nauseated from the emotional exhaustion I'd experienced since we'd returned—it had been worse, in some ways, than the pure terror before. Terror was decisive; the rollercoaster since left me doubting everything, raging, filled with sadness so deep I couldn't control it, and then simple confusion steam-rolled over the whole mess. Jake had _imprinted_?

"Why didn't you tell me?" He looked ashamed, and though his voice was a little louder, it was still soft.

"I don't like to talk about it," he said. "No one knows except Embry and Sam." He looked at me, and then, strangely, he smirked. "And I thought it wouldn't matter—I thought _you_ were the one who would leave _me_, Bella. I keep acting like an idiot." Even stranger, he threw his head back and laughed, a bitter-sweet sound. "I'm not just a dog, I'm a dumb one." We looked at each other quietly when he was done, the echo of the sound fading slowly in the big, empty room. "Even though I know you're here—that we've done what we've done—when I see you with Edward it only seems like a matter of time before you realize you're too good for me."

I bit my lip. Everything moved so fast here; it was as though Forks followed the sun at an accelerated pace from the rest of the world. Of course, it would, since half of its inhabitants weren't moving at human speed anyway. "I'm getting really tired of it, Jake," I said.

"I can tell," he said, and sighed, pulling me closer. The sound of his massive heart pushed in to the cave in my chest, echoing through me. "I am too, believe it or not."

"Then _why_ does it keep happening," I whispered, and I felt him sigh again as I nestled further in to the hollow below his jaw. His answer wasn't what I expected.

"Probably because of my imprint." I drew back and looked up at him. He looked very sad, and still very ashamed. "I should have told you, that was stupid—it just didn't occur to me to think that maybe _you_ would be insecure. And for good reason." I watched his lashes lock and unlock, his nostrils gently swell as they took in my body chemistry. "It must have felt like torture, actually," he said, his voice once again descending to softness.

It did, and I didn't need to say so for him to know. "What does it have to do with your imprint?" My question didn't quite change the subject, but I could tell he was grateful that it was evident I was working on forgiving him for not telling me.

"I didn't love her, Bells," he mumbled. "I didn't really know her, but imprinting is…more powerful than almost anything else I've ever felt. Gravity, exhaustion, grief, hunger…"

"_Almost_?" My tone was doubtful. He studied me, his mouth grave, and nodded.

"Almost." Jake's eyes continued to explore my face. "Without realizing it—I guess you're my last chance, Bells. You were my first and last chance at ever having any kind of normal happiness." His voice broke and he leaned in, his eyes closed as he rested his forehead against me. "There's nothing else for me, without you." I knew when we were younger he'd hated imprinting, but I could imagine that after I'd left he'd probably felt that it would have been freeing. I wanted to be jealous but I thought of Edward, and realized I couldn't be.

"I love you so much," I said bluntly. My hands came up and held his face, and as they reached the skin there his eyes briefly closed. "Does this mean we're…safe? Together?"

_"Together_?" He said, his eyebrows lowering and his mouth twitching mischievously. "I thought we were _married_." He smiled when I actually laughed. We kissed, a gentle, sweet kiss, before I pulled back again and looked at him more seriously. My expression, as usual, gave me away, and I didn't have to ask.

"She was a child of the moon," he said, watching my face again with a guarded expression. I waited, forcing my heart to slow the same way I had when he'd first reappeared in my life. Raw jealousy erupted inside of me, but I kept it in check in spite of all the new paths it opened in my mind; _I thought Jake had been a virgin too? Had he lied to me, blatantly? Why couldn't he have loved a normal girl—there was no way I could compare with the memory of a werewolf, was there?_ "I smelled her when I was out, a year or three after you'd left Forks. Somewhere around the Rockies." He grinned, but it faded when I couldn't make myself smile back. "I followed the trail without knowing why, and when I caught up to her…it happened." He saw I was still waiting, silently, so he sighed and continued. "She was in wolf form the entire time I knew her—three days." I could hear the grief beginning to creep in to his voice. "She was killed by vampires on the third day." When I still didn't move, his hand rose to point to the scars, and I remembered hovering over him as he explained their origin to me. _Vampire. Gunshot. Vampire. _Layer upon layer of scars on the smooth brown skin of my almost immortal wolf.

"How did you survive?" He should be dead. I knew that now—there was no way he should have survived when a werewolf had died.

"Sam thinks it was the same reason that I imprinted on a child of the moon," he said, and his voice was now numb. "I've always been freakishly strong, and I became so much bigger than everybody else…." He stared at things I could not see. "He thinks we imprint to create stronger wolves. She and I would have made strong wolves." Jealousy rippled through me again before it abated once more. He watched me carefully, turning away from whatever had held him captive in his mind. "I never saw her as a human, Bella. I carried her body back here and begged Embry and Sam to help me bury her." I realized he was trying to tell me they'd never been physical as I watched him shrug. "They did. And because of who they are, no one else knows—Sam has always been able to keep his thoughts pretty private, and Embry asked him to make sure he couldn't share by commanding him not to think about it while phased."

"Really?" Embry's words during the meeting with Leah came back to me. He'd understood—Jacob's grief at having killed mated vampires, the soothing words that Leah had mocked him for…but there was still something else. I wondered how to ask while Jacob finished his thought.

"Really. Embry is the only one who would do that for me."

"Wow," I said. And I meant it; Embry's loyalty was astonishing, given the way each wolf resented the command of the alpha. No wonder his pain had been so vivid at the first meeting we'd attended in this room; Jacob's retreat must have felt like the ultimate betrayal to him after the sacrifice of his will, however small, for their friendship. My mind picked over the details of previous conversations, moving to another pack meeting, and I found a thread and pulled on it. "Leah said that….wolves whose imprints died either chose to die themselves or refused to phase back…." Jacob nodded, gave another awkward half-shrug, and I continued, unsure. "You didn't do either?"

He laughed the same barking, salty laugh. "I did both," he said bitterly, and then gently picked me up and placed me on the table while he stood.


	37. Chapter 37

AN: Heya guys and dolls. It's nice to retreat back in to some fiction, but I don't want to disappoint you if I miss a day. So hopefully I'll be updating regularly, but don't start sending me hatemail (please) if I miss one. Transpacificmove/Gradschool=hard. And I know that sometimes I don't lay all the plot points out in a strait line and that can be frustrating, I just hope the excitement of letting it piece itself together is worth it in the long run. For me, some dashes of realism tend to strengthen romance also, and I hope to bring yall around to that way of thinking too…I'm devious like that. Okay, on with the show:

*****

"_I did both," he said bitterly, and then gently picked me up and placed me on the table while he stood._ Apparently he needed to walk around to talk about it. "You know, Bella….I can be pretty melodramatic too," he said, a hazy smirk creeping up on his face before it was snuffed out by his next words. "When you left, I didn't phase back. I ran. The pack understood, but they expected me to return eventually. I might have if I hadn't imprinted." He suddenly stood still, the pacing abruptly stopped as he stared out of the black windows. "Maybe." The voice now was the entranced one. "I may not have…when you were gone, _I_ wanted to be gone. I wasn't human for longer than a day for three years, and then I smelled her…When I came stumbling back to La Push, naked and human and covered with wounds, talking about a body in the woods, Sam thought I was going to die. I insisted they help me bury her, so they did, and then the rest of the pack was brought in and made sure I didn't kick the bucket. But when I got well we didn't know what to do. I couldn't stay in La Push. I couldn't stand being human. And Embry and Sam had been talking, bringing Leah in to the discussion, leaving out the past. They thought I could do an extended patrol on the outskirts of our territory. Keep me close, but out of the range of civilization." He turned towards me again, but his eyes were still miles away. "I decided to extend the mission."

"You started hunting, not patrolling."

"With their reluctant blessing. It took some persuasion." He looked at me, and the set of his mouth told me I didn't want to know what methods he'd used to argue his point. "After I survived the attack in the mountains, we weren't sure whether or not I could be killed." He flexed his shoulder muscles, absently, and then was still again. "We thought it would spare more of the kids….the change…if we headed the vampires off at the pass, before they could even reach our territory."

"Very strategic," I said. Now I was bitter on his behalf.

"Leah is indeed very strategic," he agreed, and I softened. For Leah, the change had been the worst thing that had ever happened to her—beginning with the death of her father and causing the loss of love. Of course she would want to make sure no one else was faced with the loneliness life had given her; in fact, Sam, Jacob and even Embry would have given up almost anything to be able to be normal as well. _The right tool for the job_, Jake had said. I'd misunderstood; the job hadn't just been hunting vampires. The job had been trying to keep more of the children in La Push from becoming wolves.

Something occurred to me. "You were still part of the pack, right?" I looked at him. "You're talking like you were following orders, and talking to everyone…but you said they couldn't hear you."

He didn't move, just staring incredulously back at me. It reminded me of Leah, sarcastically remarking on my new skills of observation. "Actually, no." His eyes bored in to mine. "My imprint became my alpha. She died defending me and the rest of her own pack, and I never rejoined Sam's. Of course, I didn't really want to….we're not sure if I could have heard them before I found her. I'd refused to be second before you were even gone from Forks, and Sam and I'd always…had a hard time seeing eye to eye. I got too big to push around. It was better for everyone that I wanted to stay away, even before." I gazed at him—_there had been more in this group?_ The woman Jake had imprinted on loomed large in my imagination. Children of the moon had _packs_, like the La Push Wolves? My mind gaped at everything I hadn't understood before, and I realized my mouth was hanging open. Jake watched me curiously.

"Jake—why wouldn't you tell me all of this?" I was baffled. When he hadn't mentioned that the home we'd been staying in belonged to his family, I had been hurt; how many more things was he keeping from me?

"I'm sorry, Bella." His brow lowered. "I guess…I guess I'm not used to sharing things, any more." He looked thoughtful, his eyes briefly wander as he chewed on the white scar tissue dividing his lip. "It wasn't as big a deal to me as I'm sure it should have been—like I said, imprinting was_ almost_ the strongest thing I've ever felt." His eyes turned hard briefly, but we didn't look away from each other. "Sam and I talked about it, the differences…I'm not trying to say it isn't important, or that I shouldn't have thought to tell you. But…she wasn't you, Bells. When she died, it hurt, but it hurt mostly because I had proof that nothing would _ever_ help me get away from you. I felt…haunted." I felt myself breathing, felt my heartbeat; I breathed deeply and deliberately, trying to rid myself of the rushing wave of guilt. A moment passed, and then he shrugged, and I pulled myself back to the present. "And to be honest, you never cared much about my past before." He looked at me sharply, hearing my long, begrudging exhale as I took in his words.

"What do you mean," I asked, and almost instantly regretted it. I knew I was about to hear more things about myself that would hurt.

"You never asked about my mom, when we were kids. You never cared about how I took care of Billy, or asked about the twins, or anything. You never cared about _anything _like that." He quickly looked down, then back up at me, full in the face, his eyes now defensive. "I know you're not like that any more, Bells, but—you were really different when you were younger." We stared at each other. I felt like hours had gone by, but the stark black of the windows told a different story. How could so much happen in so little time? I once again worked to return to the moment and study Jacob's face; his cheeks were getting slightly fuller, the furious white of his scars still prominent, his sleek muscles relaxed. He was the picture of a resting warrior, but his eyes still bore in to me, as if leery of what new suffering was to come.

"I'm sorry, Jake," I whispered. Our history was so awful. And so misunderstood. My feet dropped to the floor and I shuffled towards him. "I did care, I just didn't ask you because I didn't want to hurt you." I slowly came closer, and I could see his defenses dropping away, and any remaining ferocity going with it. "I spent months after…what happened…talking to Billy, collecting photos from when we were kids…" I stopped in front of him. "I still have the albums, if you want to see them?" My hands wrung themselves uselessly in front of my body, and I felt awkward and foolish until he reached over and took them in his wide, warm palms.

"I'd like to see," he said softly, and then slowly pulled me to him. "And Bells… I'm sorry I didn't tell you. I think—I _know_ I understand better why you hate it so much when I wolf out."

"There's a lot of things about being a wolf that kind of suck, Jake," I said, watching his face. Instead of the grimace I was expecting, a small, shy smile played on his lips as he bent it towards mine.

"I dunno," he murmured. "There's some things about it that are pretty cool…" I felt his heat on my mouth and my knees almost gave out; just as the pulse of his tongue gently traced my lips I suddenly felt his hands under me, lifting me, and I wrapped my legs around his waist without a thought. The smell of him, so close, drove any hesitation away. "The stamina, for one…" he continued in between gentle kisses along my neckline, his lips trailing down from my ear like wildfire on my skin. "And the speed, that's pretty incredible—" I was suddenly splayed on the table, legs still firmly wrapped around him while his long arms propped his muscled torso above mine and the heat between us prickled and enflamed my body. "And then there's the strength…" The force of his movements pushed an unwelcome reality in between my conflicting desires. I interrupted him as I realized he was about to literally tear my clothes off, one long fingered hand deliciously poised above my collarbone and his dark eyes looking nothing short of starved as they swept over me. My heart clenched as my senses sucked in every detail—the silky tendrils of his hair playing over my face, the sweet, hot breath blowing over my mouth…

"Jake…" He froze instantly and withdrew, chest heaving, and bitterly fighting myself, I let him go. We both looked over at the pieces of wood that were once a chair littering the floor. "We still have some things to talk about before we get…carried away."


	38. Chapter 38

"_We still have some things to talk about before we get…carried away."_

"I'll stop," he said, the words once again instantaneous and hovering in the heated space between us. "I'll stop phasing as soon as the Cullens are safe." He didn't move, but his eyes once again roamed over my face, trying to take in my thoughts. "I didn't really mean it—I don't actually think wolfing out is _cool._ You were right about Edward, and you don't even have to point out how ridiculous _this_ is." We stared at each other, one of his arms waving in a general direction at the wreckage while the rest of his body tensed.

"You keep saying that," I whispered. "After it's over, I'm always right, and you're always sorry—"

"I'll stop, Bells, I'll stop right now if you want—"

"Just stop saying it, and _do_ it," I said. I could feel tears in my eyes and I saw horror on his face. "I don't know if it's phasing, or _what_ that makes you act like this, Jake. I'm scared it's just _you_--if you can't control yourself—"

"No," he whispered. "Don't."

"I'm not!" I yelped. "But I will, Jacob." I looked at him, fiercely, feeling my guts roiling with pain, protesting against what I was saying. "Right now, the world we live in needs the wolf, but I am done with him. And…I will. If you leave me no choice—" I pushed the words out of my mouth before my own panic at the idea of living without him silenced me, knowing I couldn't actually bring myself to complete the thought out loud.

"No," he whispered again. In a flash, he'd dropped to his knees in front of me. He moved forward, using his long arms to gently draw me to the edge of the table and then buried his face against my stomach, his hot breath cutting through the fabric of my shirt. His voice was a desperate rumble, originating against my skin and edging around me so that it seemed he spoke in stereo. "We'll help the Cullens, and then it will just be you and me, Bells. I don't want—" he pulled his face up and looked at me, and I realized without his head bracing me it was just his arms that kept me balanced. His expression was made of raw fire. I ran my fingers through his hair involuntarily; I saw what he was going to say when I looked in his eyes, and I felt the truth of it. "I don't want to be this. It isn't what I need any more." He stared at me for a long moment, the desperation in his heart beat breaking like waves against my knees. "I would never hurt you Bella, I know myself and I know that….but to frighten you is bad enough. Just, please, don't ever—"

I hushed him with my lips. I didn't want him to beg. I wanted him to change, and he knew that. Now it was up to him to do it.

Jacob kissed me as if my lips were laced with an antidote to a poison that was killing him. His hands slid around my body and crushed me against his chest, my legs widening against him and the hottest center of my body pulled taunt against his wildly beating heart. It was almost frightening—the fervor in him now was only matched by the mania of his anger. I didn't know how to soothe him, and as I gently pulled away, my back bowing slightly as he pulled my lower body closer, I delicately ran my fingers through his hair and looked at him. His eyes were pleading. Panicked tears rested on the edges of his long black lashes, and he spoke again before I could think how to reassure him that I didn't want—would_ never_ want—to be without him. The ending depended on him.

"I'll do _anything_ Bella." I was now pressed so tightly against him that with each inhale and exhale his rib cage rocked my thighs like a butterfly's wings. "I need you—"

"Jacob please," I whispered. I didn't want this either, and I was beginning to regret telling him I'd come to the conclusion that the wolf and I weren't compatible at this moment. I should have waited until we weren't hot on the heels of exploding chairs and discussions about Vampire invasions, let alone the imprint that got away. But Jacob had always been unafraid of telling me how he felt. He pushed his face in between my breasts and I saw that his shoulders were shaking. "Jacob, honey—please don't. I just--" here he raised his face to look at me, and I felt tears rise in my eyes again. I'd done exactly what I'd set out not to do. I had _hurt_ him. "I don't want to be with the wolf, Jake. I don't want to have children with someone that might…" He buried his face again, his mouth open and hot and the tears like lava against my skin. "But I need you too, Jake. I want you. Please, honey, don't think of it that way—I want you." My whispers cascaded down over his head, my hands helplessly roaming over his shoulders and clutching him tighter to me. We stayed that way a long time, until his shoulders stopped moving and his ribs ceased shuddering and moved rhythmically, slowly, once again. He pulled back and stared up at me, purple gashing the skin beneath his dark eyes and dampness lining each crevice of his face.

"When I smelled her," he gasped, "I could have turned away." I held my breath. "I knew what it was, but I could also tell that for me—I could have turned away." A tear slid down his cheek. "It's just genetics. It's like an arranged marriage, or…" and here, bitterness furrowed his broad forehead, "like breeding dogs." He inhaled, clearly pausing to smell me, and then continued. "I thought it would help. I thought imprinting was the best I could do—running hadn't helped. Nothing I'd found could kill me, and I wasn't exactly suicidal….just, curiously self destructive." A short smile irked across his mouth, but another tear slid down his cheek, blemishing the effect. "That's what Leah called it." I raised my hands to his face, feeling the heat and wet on his cheeks. He continued. "We're supposed to be whatever they need, and she needed an alpha male. She was acting alpha because her own mate had died. When I showed up," his brows lowered, "she was in her moon cycle—the three days a month when they're not human. They're different than us. What they have…it seemed more like a virus." I wondered about that for a moment before listening again. "She wanted me to become the alpha, and I refused. I didn't want to be her mate." Sadness crumpled his face and then, as though suddenly embarrassed, he shook his head. "I _wanted_ to want to…" he tried to smile, and I tried back, but we both gave up. "I couldn't leave her, though—the imprinting is strong, and I'd indulged it enough. She needed protection, so I became her second. Communication was difficult—I had to phase to talk to her while she was a wolf." He stared at me again, and his word came back to mind: _haunted_. Jacob was haunted. "I tried to explain to Sam, but he didn't believe me until he realized nothing had changed when she died except that I got _worse_. Because there was _nothing_, nothing for me. No reason to live and no way to die." He leaned towards me. "Can you imagine, for a moment, how that felt?"

I couldn't. But I knew who could.

"I didn't want Leah to know, because Sam….it tortured Sam, to see that I'd refused her anything. We know that I was supposed to be alpha of our pack"—my eyes widened—"and we can only guess that that is why I'm so different." His tears were gone, for now, but I kept my hands planted on his face. "Leah thought of what to do—she thought we could save the kids. She thought we could keep them away, keep all this shit from ever happening again—" tears spilled over once more, and his voice broke. "And I could live for that. I could stay alive to make sure of that. But now, it seems…we made it worse. We couldn't figure out why more kids were phasing, why vampires kept coming—it was _me_. When I killed one I was just making sure it's mate would show up…turning more kids…." He sobbed again, and I let him, experiencing a kind of pain I could never personally imagine as deep waves wracking my own rib cage. When he could look up at me again, he continued, but his voice was ruined. "When I was in the woods, and I heard you tell Edward…" a glimmer appeared at the memory, then lapsed. "I felt it—not imprinting. _Love_. I wanted you, I wanted anything at all, it was so scary and it had been so long—Bella, I'm trying to say that I love you more than anything. That there has _never_ been and never _will be_ anything as powerful as how much I love you." I couldn't speak. Tears fell from my eyes and rolled down my chin towards his face. "But maybe—maybe you can understand what I meant when I said I don't want to be loved because I deserve it?" Pain crushed the simple sparks of hope in his eyes. "I deserve it less—if love is something we earn, than I shouldn't…I shouldn't be loved." Hopelessness filled his face, and his voice dropped to a whisper. "I'm selfish, for clinging to you…but I can't help myself. To touch you—to be able to talk to you like this—how could I go back? I would do anything to keep you, and I _hate_ that I frighten you…and then you mention children…how could you want children with me, when they could phase and become _monsters_? Can you imagine?" By the end his eyes were distracted; his monologue erratic and I realized he was moving. His hands were slowly slipping from around me, and my mind raced frantically, trying to process everything he'd told me before they slipped away forever.


	39. Chapter 39

_His hands were slowly slipping from around me, and my mind raced frantically, trying to process everything he'd told me before they slipped away forever._

Jacob had imprinted. My greatest fear—both selfish and foolish, as it was greater than my fear of the vampires, of the endless violence of our lives, and even, if I were honest, greater than my fear of staying with Jacob and the raging wolf—was vanquished, made irrelevant in one night. I saw, in retrospect, how I had prepared myself for his rejection, and still come to Forks seeking to make amends, and how my plan had largely ended on that uncertain note. I was now further into unknown territory, legions of possibility swimming in and out of view as each new crisis waxed and waned; I was afraid of losing myself, of compromising who I'd become, to be with the wolf. Jacob hated the wolf, even more than I did, and because I could see that now I saw the way as clearly as if it were written on the white wall in front of me. We could do this. I was sure of it. And we could find a way to make sure our children were safe—and even if we didn't, I was positive we could find a way to make sure they were happy.

Edward had told me the truth—Jacob was searching for the way this would end. He'd determined it would, and yet wanted to be with me so badly that he was ripping himself in half—it had to stop. I grabbed his wrists with my hands and held them firmly.

"I can imagine," I whispered. "I do imagine it. I want children, with you. Little monsters of our very own." He was frozen, his eyes suddenly wide. "I know you, Jacob Black. None of this—none of these things can erase how amazing you are. I would be _honored_ to have your children." I waited for him to move, but it seemed like he couldn't. He didn't blink, the pupils in his eyes constricting until they almost disappeared in the warm brown surrounding them. His chest was still. "I don't ever want to leave you. And now I don't think I ever will." The slight rise and fall told me he'd begun to breathe again. "Please don't keep anything from me again—please don't deprive me of the chance to show you how much I love you. You told me we could go on faith—" and here a wayward tear ran down his cheek, a split second before he buried his face once again between my breasts. "I have faith," I whispered to him, my arms around his shoulders, fingers interlaced with his hair. "I know who you are."

It hadn't occurred to me that Jacob had never really been able to detail his experiences. He'd introduced the idea of hunting to me when his body and mind were still unable to completely process human emotions and thoughts, and we'd never gotten the chance to return to the discussion; the fantasia of vampires had arrived and although we'd certainly found a way to make our emotions known to each other, this story had been waiting to be told the whole time. I pushed my fingers deeper against his scalp, capturing a handful of the soft black threads and then gently pulling my fingers through them. I slid one hand down over the bulk of his shoulder, laying it against his spine, and brought my head down to his while my other hand moved to cradle his cheek. "Jacob, you can do this. You don't have to act like this any more, and you can _be_ with me." He didn't remove his face from where it lay against me, but he turned his ear slightly towards me, his eyes tightly shut. I kissed his cheek, tasting salt and cinders.

"Please don't leave me, Bells," he whispered. I sighed against his cheek, closing my eyes. I could feel his humiliation and despair as clearly as the heat radiating from him, and I again regretted my haste in bringing up the inevitable need to part with the wolf—but if I'd waited, when would we have been able to clear the air like this? Maybe it would have been just as uncomfortable, as painful, any other day or night. Maybe he just needed me to explain myself better, the way I'd needed to hear his story, in order to feel the same reassurance I had now.

"I thought…I thought that you might not want to give up being a wolf, or even worse…you _couldn't_," I murmured. "I guess I was worried that I would stay with you—and even if you can't imprint again, there were other obvious problems with it, like chair bashing and jumping out of trucks and never, ever knowing what was going to happen next—and I would be giving up who I've become." I could tell he was listening closely; he could probably hear the tiny vibrations in my thorax as they cooperated to produce my voice. "I don't want to be who I was before, either, Jake." We were both quiet together, silent in the long, broken years represented by that thought, before I continued. "But I just needed to know where you were coming from, honey." I rubbed one tear slicked cheek with my thumb while I kissed the other one, gently nuzzling him out of hiding. "I just needed to talk to you, like people in love do sometimes." This time there was a smile on my mouth when I kissed him, and he turned his head slightly so my lips grazed the corner of his. His eyes were now open.

"Like people do," he whispered, and I nodded. He stared at me, his expression caught between wanting to hope and being afraid to. "I just…I don't," his eyes closed tightly, then reopened, "I don't want to ever be—I can't live without—"

"—You don't have to," I soothed. My hands were both lost in his hair now, his head gently turned to finally face mine. "You just had to tell me that I wouldn't be living this way forever. And you did."

"But, you were so mad…" His eyebrows were irked black smudges, but his breathing was slowly becoming steady and the low rush of heat on my jaw reassured me. He was stabilizing, finding the solid path back to that murky, beautiful and tenuous future we both wanted and didn't understand. He watched me, his nose quivering, trying to follow me as I lead him towards a place where we were together. Permanently.

"I was. I was really mad. And I'm not sure I should have said what I did, at this exact moment in time. It was kind of a full conversation—but then again, we needed to talk. I'm not sure we would've gotten to this point if I hadn't been angry enough to throw an ultimatum at you." My voice was more normal in tone now, but I didn't remove my hands from framing his face. He took in what I said with his eyes still wide open. "I didn't understand what I was doing, when I did it." In the back of my mind, I wondered if he would be angry with me, and as the thought moved towards my waking conscience I braced for the possible retreat of Jacob, and the return of the temperamental wolf.

"So you can have tantrums, but I can't?" A delicate twitch told me he was on the verge of smiling, and when I grinned at him he grinned back. We stayed like that for a second before his faded, my smile painted by relief as much as joy. Worry replaced his. "Did you really mean what you said…about children? With me?"

"Of course," I said without hesitation. For a moment, I thought he might push his face into my chest again, sheltering against me, but he didn't. Instead his hands slid up my back from their awkward posts by my sides and he pulled my shoulders slightly down, tilting his face up. Our foreheads met before our lips did.

"It was impossible to believe, Bella—I just…"

"You can't complete a sentence at all right now, can you," I teased in a low voice, and then our mouths found each other, and he told me exactly what he was thinking.

*****

AN: Thank you to all reviewers—I've found that it's become almost dangerous to check my email, I get so excited about these reviews and start checking my email too often! I can't believe how nice some of the things yall have written are, it blows my mind. Someone also sent me a message saying I'd been nominated for something (totally unbeknownst to me) on the Sort of Beautiful site…and wow! I don't even know what to say about that. If it happens again, will you guys let me know? I spend a lot of time writing and almost no time learning how to use livejournl/fanfictiondotcom/the interwebs. My nerdliness is mostly old school. Anyway. Thank you, so much. This is a lot of fun.


	40. Chapter 40

AN: Brief note that actually has to do with the text, for a change—one of the character traits (of the very few) that I preserved in my Bella was her sex drive. Because, seriously? Horndog Bella from BD was one of the funniest things ever. Thank you again, I cannot believe how kind the reviews have been.

*****

Every inch of me glowed, electric and exhausted. I sat stupidly on the floor, Jacob similarly collapsed and sprawled beside me. Neither of us was capable of thinking clearly for a few minutes, choosing instead to stare at each other's bodies until I crawled over to him, curling against his side and feeling him drape an arm over me. When he spoke again, his words surprised me.

"That was pretty dumb," he said tonelessly. He kissed my thigh, eyes closed, lingering against me and smelling my skin with no shame. "I'm not sorry," he finished, and I giggled. His eyes opened again, and a wild grin covered his face. "What?"

"We are…it's like we're _drunk_!" I said. Both of us laughed out loud. I forced my body, now tender and spent, to lay down on top of him, and felt a bit more serious. He was right, we had been pretty dumb. "I guess we should figure out something, for future…emergencies." Another happy, silly smile plastered itself on my face and the same one looked back at me from Jacob's. The warmth behind his eyes also turned his slightly serious after a moment.

"I wouldn't mind," he said softly. I raised my head higher to fully look at him, and he took a deep breath. "I wouldn't mind if we didn't—well, I mean, I wouldn't mind if you got…"

"Back to never finishing sentences," I mumbled, but the joke was dry. Worry threatened to eclipse the raw happiness of the moment.

"I'm serious." He looked back at me, and I could see he was. His teeth tugged nervously at the white scar before he continued, and my heart melted inside of me. I wrapped my arms under his neck, laying fully along the length of him, and felt his arms come up around my middle, our legs tangling together. "If you want to wait, of course let's wait, but Bells, if you meant what you said…I'll marry you tomorrow. I'll marry you _tonight_, if that's what you want."

"Wow, Jake," I mumbled. Wow indeed….What _did_ I want? Further and further in to uncharted territory, I stumbled upon more and more frightening boundaries, the landscape murky beyond. Jake didn't mind if I got pregnant? He'd been terrified of having children an hour ago. And marriage—how did I feel about that? Renee'd been married three times. Charlie'd gotten his heart broken and never married again. I realized I'd been quiet too long when Jacob shifted below me, finally rearranging us into sitting positions, our faces pointed towards each other but his tilted down to continue quietly examining mine. I felt bashful and tried to smile at him, and it didn't lessen his anxiety. Trouble knitted itself across the flesh of his forehead.

"Wow isn't yes, I guess," he said softly. I noticed that there seemed to be no danger of his losing control; he absently took one of my hands between his and brought it to his lips, closing his eyes again and inhaling. I wondered what he smelled in my skin, that he sought it so openly.

"Jake—how do you really feel about having kids?" His eyes opened, black lashes fluttering in surprise. "I mean, I'm confused…earlier, you were so upset that they might be like you—" He nodded in understanding.

"Bells, this might sound weird to you but I've wanted to do this since _we_ were kids—not sex, I mean….just to be with you." Rich brown irises narrowed as his black pupils swelled, remembering. "And the natural extension of getting together is getting married, having kids…Even if I never said to myself, gee I can't wait till I can knock Bella up, it's always been there. In the background." He brought my hand to his mouth again, turning my palm towards his lips and kissing it deeply before he continued. "I am scared of passing on my…deformity, or whatever. But if you really…if you really…" He looked at me again, pressed my palm against his brown cheek and waited. The end of the sentence wrote itself in my mind's eye. _If you really meant what you said. If you really love me as much as you seem to want to make me believe you do. If you've really changed enough to work towards something beautiful for us—a family. If you really want what I want. _He didn't move again, his expression patient, unexpectant. I realized we could stay this way, just exactly this same way, for another day and night, and I knew he was ready to believe me. Ready to wait forever, as long as he knew I would be with him at the end of it.

"I'm not ready to do that stuff, Jake," I whispered. He was still looking at me, still calm. "I want to do it someday, but not today." I forced my weary arms up around his neck again and scooted my body against his, feeling the muscles of his thighs on either side of mine as dense as heated concrete. It felt safe. His lovely face, warm, coffee skin soft across firm bones, pressed against mine, and I brought one of my hands around to stroke his cheek. The scar below his eye greeted the ridges on my palm, textureless and cool. "I would love to have children with you, Jake, some day," I said, and knew as I said them the words were true. "But…maybe marriage is something I'll have to think about." The curve of his smile was flush against my cheek.

"Isn't that backwards?" He chuckled, low and thick, arms tightening around me.

"Maybe I'm just backwards," I said. "I feel like I learn _everything_ backwards." _Or just too late_, I thought, and gulped. I was glad we'd gotten a little creative this time…but last time…the first time…

"Backwards…" he repeated, his voice suddenly lower, and then kissed my shoulder where it met my throat. Heat flew out across my skin at the touch of his lips, and I felt my deeper self responding at the same time Jacob's hands teased across the slip of skin over my hips. "That's something _neither_ of us has learned…" the tone descended towards a growl.

"Jacob, we can't," I whispered, and I meant it this time. Our conversation brought home our recklessness and in spite of my body's lack of commitment—rather, total disinterest in celibacy--my mind disrupted the pleasure he stirred across me with fervent remonstrations. He immediately acquiesced, the undercurrent of lust abruptly disappearing from his touch.

"Okay," he said, and I knew he wouldn't put us in this position again—well, he wouldn't allow me to put us in this position again. I hoped my pragmatism could trump my body's resilient hunger when it had been longer than a half hour since I'd had him completely. "I love you, Bells," he whispered, cradling me. It was the last thing I heard; the warmth, the closeness and comfort of his embrace, all lulled me to a sudden sleep.

Savage nightmares roamed through my mind, warping the events of the day—Leah dragged Edward's body from the woods and begged Jacob to help bury it. Alice appeared in a ancient painting on the wall of Billy Black's house which violently burst in to flame. I gave birth to a round, bright moon. When I woke, it was in the bed of my girlhood at my own father's house, my clothes twisted on my body as if someone had tried to put them on me with awkward hands…hands that came alarmingly close to claws. It was the only passing thought I had before dread invaded me and I raced for a telephone.


	41. Chapter 41

_It was the only passing thought I had before dread invaded me and I raced for a telephone._

It was already ringing when I picked it up, and her tone when she did was no better than before. "It hasn't changed," she whispered. "We're leaving, a little early, Bella. Please don't argue." I realized I didn't have a reasonable plan to offer her, and instead begged her for half an hour to send me news as soon as she deemed it safe to do so, collapsing in to tears; I would see a brief reprieve, feel deluded, and cry again, over and over. I tried to do it quietly, so that Charlie wouldn't hear.

"I can't see you, Bella," she whispered, despair robbing her of any inflection. "I can't keep in contact with you, not knowing whether or not you'll be monitored…used to find me…" She trailed off. I surrendered the begging and prepared to launch in to a desperate series of illogical scenarios—_we'll siege Volterra, we'll send Carlisle to the UN, isn't there anything, anything more valuable than you to these creatures_—when she cut me off. "Bargaining is one of the five stages of grief, Bella." I wanted to laugh and to cry. I wanted this to disappear. Manic plots and delusions flew through my mind, and then they all stopped as something else she said wound its way tonelessly in to my ear. "Edward is…flickering."

"What are you talking about, Alice? Are you trying to distract me—seriously, I know you're brilliant, isn't there anything, any way at all—"

"I can't see him all the time," she cut me off. In spite of the horror of our situation, she was genuinely curious about this. "There are parts of his future that look like…yours," she sighed. "Vanished. Flickering in and out." We were quiet.

"What could that mean?" I almost swore with frustration—each day had new mysteries that my futile, human mind could hardly expect to resolve. My fingernails dug in to my palms, the tears drying on my cheeks. Alice sighed again.

"I have no idea," she whispered. "But I think it means he's going to stay with you." One breath, two breaths, three breaths. I knew she was going to say goodbye next. "Please take care of my brother, Bella," she whispered. "Don't let him hurt himself, doing some ridiculously noble, unnecessary thing." One more brief pause. "I love you." The line clicked. Dial tone.

_Goodbye, Alice. _

I sank to my knees. I hadn't had enough sleep to cope with grief; I hadn't had five minutes outside of the rollercoaster Jake and I had been on to even try to think of a plan. I had nothing to offer and the failure literally took my breath away._ Alice on fire. A round, bright moon._

I picked up the phone and dialed, finding the number scrawled on the back of the ancient phone book tucked beneath the bread bin. A weary voice answered, I crossed my fingers, and then Leah was on the phone.

"I wasn't sure you'd be home," I said. I heard her wry exhale.

"Well, I usually prefer to wander the streets like a vagrant," she began, but stopped when she didn't hear me laugh. "So what's the battle strategy, vamp-tramp?" She asked. Her voice was low, and although the words were stinging I recognized the grudging respect behind them, and even the kindling of friendship. It helped. I steadied myself.

"You weren't kidding when you said you would help, were you?" I realized I'd been hoping she'd have something to offer me. It took her a second to answer.

"Kidding? I'm not much of a kidder," she muttered. "Sam isn't exactly overjoyed that I was so enthusiastic about helping out a bunch of what we're supposed to drive out of existence," she said, and I could feel the epic eye roll that accompanied that sentence through the phone line. "If you've got something brilliant though, I'll tell him to stuff it." Leah meant it, I knew. Of course, we both also knew that if he wanted to over rule her, all it would take was a word.

"They left already," I said. My broken voice betrayed my sadness. I waited for her to mock me, but silence wrung through the line instead.

"Really? Just like that?" Her surprising sympathy washed over me. "That's awful, all three of them? God, if this wasn't scary before—"

"Well," I said thoughtfully, "Alice and Jasper are gone." I sighed, still waiting for her hard words, the clever twist of the knife, and yet stayed on the line for some reason. "I think…I think Edward may still be here."

"Of course," she said. The grin in the phrase registered with me, and then it was my turn to roll my eyes. "How could he leave? I'm sure you and Jake put on such a great show last night—"

"_What_?!" I almost dropped the phone. She'd continued talking right over my exclamation.

"—probably sat in the woods with a video camera—"

"—Leah, _shut the hell up_!" She did. For a second.

"Relax, Bella," she smirked. "That's like, the eighth table to get destroyed in there. Although the chair too, that was a nice touch." I was so embarrassed I was sure my entire blood content had swarmed to the surface of my skin. The hand that wasn't holding the phone was clamped over my mouth. "I have to say, I'm surprised that sex is even possible with a mutt Jake's size…Bella? Bella are you there?"

"No, I am not here." I squeezed my eyes shut and prayed that this was another scene in my elaborate nightmares.

"Bella, I'm just teasing you. That really is the millionth table to be smashed or crushed or humped to dust in there, don't worry about it—"

"I'm moving back to Phoenix."

"Bella, jeeeez—have you _met_ Paul? How about Quil? Listen, it's not a big deal unless you act like this, and then I'm just never going to be able to shut up about it. Let's get back on topic. Vampires. Bella? Bella?"

I didn't know what to do with myself—she was right. Jacob had rejoined their pack, and I had known, whether or not I remembered last night, what that would mean for anyone consenting to a relationship with a wolf. Perhaps I'd imagined the images Edward found so hard to decipher would somehow remain veiled to the pack. I cursed myself for being foolish enough to behave that way, so reckless, completely out of control…and that lead me to remembering the entire evening, and then I found I didn't care. If the price of love was going to be broken furniture and witty cracks from his pack sister, I would pay it every time.

We moved on to talk about when we could meet to discuss the latest horror and plan accordingly. I suspected Leah like me quite a lot, actually, and without my asking she suggested another restaurant, far from Emily's. When I hung up the phone I was startled to see my father leaning against the wall behind me. Concern battled with pride on his face, and I looked at him questioningly.

"Phoenix, Bella?" He asked. I laughed before I realized he was serious.

"Leah is such a cornball, Dad," I said by way of explanation, and moved past him to try and wring some usefulness out of the day. Talking to Leah had cheered me; I suspected the prospect of plotting with a friend was really the source—the idea that an easy solution was sitting just out of reach, but, our forces combined, it would seem woefully simple bandaged the mixture of disbelief and pain Alice's departure left. For one, I would still have friends. For another, I had hope; my words to Jacob echoed back to me. _I have faith._

_What stage of grief is that, Alice,_ I thought fleetingly, and then just as abruptly some of it was shed when I heard her quiet rebuttal. _Denial_.

The splash of realism hardened my resolve. My body felt as though my skeleton were melting inside of my muscles; I would rest and heal myself today. Tomorrow, we'd see how denial could withstand the kind of desperation love could produce.

If Charlie knew I'd left last night, he gave no indication. My body felt fractured in places; Jacob's size and strength aside, I knew I was paying the price any human would for venturing so long in to the land of vampires and wolves. I spent the day—the part of it I was awake for—taking a leisurely bath and doing laundry, rearranging the kitchen and making a lasagna before I sat comfortably with my father while we folded clothes after dinner, the television creating a companionable bubble of sound in our quiet living room. Darkness fell quickly and I knew that I'd sleep just as deeply tonight. My bones crackled in protest every time I sat up too fast. Charlie graciously declined to comment, and went to bed around nine. I tried to wait until ten and found my eyes closing of their own accord, sighed, and started the arduous climb upstairs.

I got halfway up before Jacob silently appeared in front of me. He wordlessly picked me up and laid me in bed in a tenth of the time it would have taken me to walk.

"Jake, I have to brush my teeth," I whispered, and he picked me up again, silent, and crept to the bathroom. I rocked on my heels while he got the toothbrush ready, and then watched him while I spun it absently around in my mouth. His dark eyes were careful as he watched me. He had yet to speak. When I finished, I shot a ridiculous, sud filled smile at him before I spat the toothpaste out, and his shoulders shook as he laughed silently and bit his lip. There it was again--so much sweet vulnerability in that one, subconscious movement, so cute it was criminal. I quickly rinsed my mouth out and planted a kiss on Jake before he was done laughing, pressing myself into him until I felt his pulse in his tongue. His arms wrapped around me and in the next instant, I found myself flat on my back on my bed, his massive, heated frame tumbled next to me like my own personal mountain range. I caught my breath when I felt his smooth, heated fingertips lightly tracing my face.

"You cut your nails!" I gasped. Jake grinned and kissed me again, fumbling with my clothes. I let him undress me, then sighed petulantly when he started pulling fresh pajamas over my mildly resistant limbs. He kissed my bottom lip deliberately as I pushed it out in a defiant pout. So much for relying on my restraint.

"Goodnight Bells," Jake whispered, his fingers once again stroking my hair. Under his gaze I felt my eyes closing, time slipping away again. I turned my back and curved in to him, unconsciousness mercilessly debilitating me just as I felt one final, tender kiss on the back of my neck. A surreal landscape rife with ruin waited for me in my dreams.


	42. Chapter 42

"_What do you want to talk about?" I asked him in a slow, languid voice. My hands were wrinkled, gnarled with age, and gently stroking the back of the wolf at my feet. He rolled a baleful eye at me and snorted, a high, thin whine puncturing our peaceful moment from the other room just as he raised his head._

_I don't know how I knew it was a he._

_Deep, red fur rippled across his lean body. Black eyes swirled while he waited. The whining noise became shrill, distracting._

_"Your sister doesn't like it when we're away from her," I whispered. "You should really take her to see Leah soon." He whined. The sound made all the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. _

_"I'll tell you the story of your great, great, god-knows-how many great grandfathers when you get back," my ancient voice burbled at the wolf. "I thought once you were grown you wouldn't want to hear these any more…" My voice was steady and calm, even as the fire crept from the other room—the room with the whine—and spread towards us across the floor. White heat distorted my son's face as he whined at me again, tongue lolling obscenely from his mouth as he began to pant, otherwise still._

_We were in Billy Black's house. My wolf children and I, calmly burning alive._

I woke screaming.

The distressing thing upon waking was that Jacob was not there; the bed was empty, and then my father was planted beside me, frightened and then uncertain. Charlie's labored breathing did nothing to dispel my horror—I needed to talk to Jake immediately. I needed reassurance about our children, about phasing; I needed to hear the words I'd said to him about their happiness repeated back to me. While Charlie gently patted my arm and I smiled bleakly back at him; I ruefully prayed that he would leave and Jacob return. Immediately.

As if he knew, Charlie gave up the awkward, repetitive motion and began to return to his own room. The look he gave me as he left was steeped in reluctant fear.

"Dad—" I stopped myself, not knowing what to say, and then took a deep breath. "It's not like before, Dad." _It's not like before because the targets of evil are just the people I love this time, not me. It's not like before because it's a werewolf I cry out for, not a vampire. _I squeezed my eyes shut and shook my head, exasperated, while he watched. "I'm okay. I'm going to be okay…I just have a lot in my head." I opened my eyes and looked at him, hoping his expression would be calmed, that I wouldn't have given him nightmares of his own. Nothing I'd said was a lie.

"You're not a little girl any more, Bella," my father mumbled. "I know that." He slid away through the door quietly, surprisingly nimble on his feet, and looked back at me one last time. "And you've always had a lot going on in that head of yours. I just hope your heart knows what to do with all of it." I didn't have anything to say to that, so I simply nodded, and Charlie eased back across the hall. The click of his door told me that he truly knew I was a woman now, capable of navigating the darkness in my mind by myself; at least, I certainly could with the right guide, when I needed one. The image of my wolf son from the dream, painted the same deep shade as Jacob, flashed before me. It must be terrifying to watch your children stumble through adulthood, courting disasters you saw coming, and having to let them stand on their own to face them. _Through the flames, alone._ The high pitched whine stained my eardrums, and I whimpered; just like that, Jacob was beside me, warm fingers teasing my hair back from my face and a sweet kiss on my temple telling me that for now, I was awake, and safe.

"Jacob—I had a nightmare," I whispered to him. I described the dream, including every detail I could remember. The glint of light dancing from his eyes told me they raced across my face, back and forth, taking in everything. We looked at each other, our faces grim mirrors, fingers interlocked.

"Maybe…" he began, then paused, tried again. "Maybe you're just tired, Bells. A lot has happened—my dad's house isn't going to burn down. You're not going to give birth to a wolf—"

"Two wolves," I said, suddenly. "Twins." I knew it as surely as I knew that the Volturi were burning Billy Black's house in my dreams, murdering my children. I felt it in my bones like an ache. He sighed and slipped a long arm under me, pulling me closer to his face. The gentle blow of his breath pulled me back from panic, but not before one last horror slipped past my subconscious and erupted behind my eyes. No Jacob. They killed my Jacob in the dream. Tears swelled in my eyes, and then a warm finger wiped them away.

"Beautiful Bella…" He whispered. "I know this is kind of the opposite of how my own life has worked out, but…dreams don't come true." A half smile seduced me back from the brink again. "You interrupted me—I was going to say, there's a pretty good chance you'll give birth to wolves, Bells, just not _right now_. I mean, if what we talked about still holds true." He kinked an eyebrow, as if he weren't serious, but I could tell he needed to hear me say it.

Was that what I needed, too? To hear my own voice, my own reassurances? Digging through the uncomfortable feelings and images that besieged me, I found I wasn't afraid of having my wolves…I was afraid of my gnarled hands, the missing father to tell expectant faces the Quileute stories. I was afraid of the mystery behind my daughter in the other room, the wicked fire hunting us across the floor of Billy's house.

I was afraid of the Volturi.

If they killed Jacob, as Edward warned they wanted to do…would they come after his children? A hand slid down my smooth front. I was afraid of getting pregnant because we'd been reckless, once, although the chances of anything happening right now were virtually non-existent—but what if they waited? What if Jake and I were happy, looking forward to kids, actually_ trying,_ when they struck? We could never out wait the Volturi. Not while I was mortal. What would it take, to make sure _we_ were safe…our_ children_ were safe? My hand stayed on my belly, fingers fidgeting over the future.

Twins. If not now, later. I was positive.

The Volturi had to be stopped. For Alice's sake, and Edward's. For the sake of the pack—for the sake of the man I loved, so brave, so worthy of happiness after all he'd suffered…for the sake of the twins. But how?

"What do you think it would take," I whispered, Jake's eyes once again ratcheting back and forth across my face in the dark, "for the pack to take another working vacation?"


	43. Chapter 43

AN: Sorry guys—updates will be spotty for the next two weeks, but I'll do my best. Thanks again for all of the wonderful things you say.

*****

Leah howled; she laughed till tears sprang in the corners of her coal black eyes, she panted and shook and was generally humiliating. Jake swept a wide hand across his face, kissed my cheek, and said he'd wait outside. I knew that meant he was going for a run—the pinnacle of hope for our children sounded like the laugh track to _Friends._ It wasn't a good feeling. Everyone else in the restaurant stared openly at the pair of us; when Leah finally calmed herself she turned and pointedly stared back at them before slowly turning to face me. The smirk on her face disappeared when she saw my own somber expression.

Perhaps 'somber' is the wrong word. I felt the icy lock of fear on my ribs, as if the Volturi were already reaching inside of my chest cavity with their dead, white fingers. Perhaps 'hopeless' is the word we're looking for.

"Listen, Bella," she said, and it did not escape me that to my recollection, she'd only said my real name once before, "Sam is not going to agree. He's not going to see the merit in a plan that could single-handedly wipe out the entire fighting wing of the pack. And not to sound _rational_, or anything, but we don't know what we're facing—we own this territory. There's a reason Jacob is the only one of us to leave the pack." Her fierce, slim features were lovely, lured away from their tendency towards ire and frustration. Leah did not like telling me no. Her eyes narrowed on something over my shoulder, and her compassion suddenly retreated underneath glacial disgust, a low swear word riding the sigh that escaped her lips.

"Just say yes anyway." Dull music floated over my head towards her, and I realized Edward was behind me. "Consider it an opportunity to tell Sam what you really think."

"He knows what I really think, even when I don't _want_ him to, genius," Leah hissed. Surprising me, Edward slid in the booth beside her. In spite of her tough talk she slid in to the furthest corner of the booth; her nose bunched rigidly as she continued. "Kinda like someone else I know. Anyway, walking up to Sam, stinking like vamp-sauce and saying 'Bella Swan suggested we send all our best fighters to Italy to face an unknown number of militaristic, self-righteous—"

"—white—"

"_white,_ colonizing—"

"--Christopher Columbus was Italian," Edward murmured at her, his golden eyes the exact same shade as her skin. He paused while she halted over his words. "And I meant telling Sam what you _really_ think." Leah's mouth dropped open just a fraction before she could rally her next counter-attack.

"Are you _flirting_ with her?" The incredulous tone of voice did not mask Jacob's amusement, and the frigid hold on my heart loosened as he sat beside me in the booth. Warm hands cupped mine and we both looked back at Edward. For the first time since I'd seen him, Edward blazed down on us with his crooked smile. I felt it was my responsibility to break the spell.

"He's _dazzling_ her," I grinned, and Jacob's rumbling laugh once again attracted the attention of every patron in the restaurant. Leah spent a full minute glaring at them in turn before she locked eyes with Edward once again.

"Even if you didn't stink, _vanilla_, I would hardly be dazzled by nature's deadliest dental work. And—" she put her hand up, palm towards him like a stop sign, just as he appeared to be mounting _his_ next attack—"I will not be swayed by your intimate knowledge of my personal issues regarding said personal issues. I'm not going to stand in front of the pack and say anything that might jeopardize my standing with my guys and—" hand still up—"I am not going to endanger them." She lowered it, finally, but continued to stare at Edward.

"I know you love them," he said, soft and clear, but then a sly grin shaded his beautiful face. "Almost as much as you hate Christopher Columbus." Leah looked like she wanted to smack him, but it was strange; she looked almost the same as she did when she wanted to smack Jared, or Paul. Not Quil or Embry, certainly not Seth…but something vital had changed.

Jacob and Leah did not hate Edward Cullen. And Jacob, at least, certainly did not want him or his family to die. I realized my mind was ticking through these things a little too busily when Jacob turned to watch my face, his nose twitching; my adrenaline must be up. I squeezed his hand reassuringly.

"Edward can solve some of this," I said in a low voice. Everyone turned towards me wearing matching expressions of puzzlement and doubt. "Edward can read Carlisle's mind, ask him the right questions…Edward can make sure the enemy is completely known." I looked around at them, Leah and Jake confused and Edward's arctic beauty perked towards hope. "What does the pack need to know, Leah? What kinds of things are important before a battle?" She tweaked an eyebrow and glanced at the vampire next to her.

"Everything. Anything." She leaned towards me and her expression was grave. "Of all people, vamp-tramp, you should know that underestimating the enemy is usually the best way to die." I didn't feel proud of the role I'd played in the deaths of the vampires until I realized that Jacob would not be here with me, right now, if I had been slower, or too afraid—too human—to think on my feet. I nodded.

"What should I ask him?" Edward's eyebrows were lowered, concern painting itself there; Jacob cocked his head like a wolf and continued to decipher the scents in the room. He whipped his head around, eyes wide and staring, but too slow to stand before Seth Clearwater tried to slap the back of his head. Jake caught his hand, noticed the crowd staring yet again, and let it go. The giant man-child laughed.

"Yeah, what should he ask him?" Seth was tall and masculine, but his playful words were reminiscent of the child I'd known. He smirked down at Jake, who scowled. "Downwind, bro." He leaned closer. "Old trade secret. Learned it from a master." More howling laughter; I would have laughed too if it didn't remind me of Leah's earlier outbursts.

"He should start with, 'how can Leah tell the alpha she wants to send almost everyone she loves on a suicide mission?" Embry made the entire row of booths creak and moan as he settled in the one adjacent to us, waggling his eyebrows but clearly still serious.

"Nah—how about, 'do you remember what ancient Quileutes did with treasonous lady-wolves?" Quil also smirked, but the question hung in the air, stark and heavy.

"Maybe we should go to Sam before hand," Leah muttered. Edward did nothing but watch her, even as the conversation changed, wrapping around topics like pie (which was worse here than at Emily's), triple cheese burgers (also worse than at Em's), why Bella Swan was so pale, why Jake cut his fingernails, whether or not we could both die of embarrassment at the same time, and the waitresses. All of them: young, old, thin, thick, listening or across the room. It was light, hilarious, tender, amusing and wonderful. I felt seventeen again.

And I watched Edward watching Leah, and squeezed Jacob's hand. Something was happening there that was none of my business, but the pack knew about it, and Edward appeared to; for me, the question of what Leah was really thinking would have to go unanswered for now.


	44. Chapter 44

_Less than a month_, I thought to myself, swishing dirty dishes through grey water. My hands were busy, but I wasn't really working; the laundry wasn't quite done, the groceries weren't bought, dinner was more imagination than reality. I was attempting to distract myself, and in a major turn of events, housework was not enough to accomplish the task. It seemed nothing was. In my reverie, I dropped the bowl I was holding for the third time and, exasperated, I gave up, sat down at the kitchen table, and committed to waiting.

Jacob told me he was going to talk to Sam himself. I asked him to bring Leah, and after a thoughtful pause, he agreed. We both knew without his saying so that he was really asking for Sam to help him; the Cullens were at stake, true. But Jacob was the one who would die. Being a member of the Guard—whatever that really entailed—couldn't be as final, as dramatic and grim, as death.

In my mind, I tried to imagine the meeting. Jacob attempts to explain his position, and words fail him. Sam nods darkly, knowing he is pleading for his life; Leah snorts, belittles them both, and then agrees with Jacob even while sounding like she somehow doesn't. Sam nods again, his expression still grim. Then he says no.

Jake and I run.

But where? Neither of us is Alice, able to dodge futures incompatible with her wishes by subverting the uninvited guests swarming her mind. Neither of us is even Edward, listening to the bickering and self hatred and honest love inside of strangers, able to sort the good from the bad. We could never see them coming. We would have to run forever.

But where? Where is far enough away? Where is close enough to be safe for us to finally relax, to be, to live, to grow old together and die on our own terms?

Perhaps Sam will tell Jake to leave; we endanger the pack, after all, if we stay. Can members be exiled? Would anyone leave with us, if we were forced to go? And then I think of that word—_force_. Who could _force_ Jacob to do anything?

My hands were white knuckled and shaking on the table when I heard him return.

I flung myself at him as he entered the kitchen, his broad chest a warm wall beneath my cheek. I felt him kiss the top of my head and closed my eyes; when he didn't speak immediately, I knew the news wasn't good.

"He said he would help you leave," Leah said, her voice low and impatient. I didn't know she would still be with Jacob, and I dropped my hands from his back and made to turn away. He didn't let me, holding me closer instead, and we shuffled slightly to one side so she could come in the kitchen. She went directly to the coffee maker and got to work, talking in the same rushed voice. "He was apologetic, of course…no one can apologize for smashing your dreams like Sam can," she muttered. "He's got it down to an art form. 'You know why I can't help you, Jacob,'" she said in a deeper, fake voice, "'I sure would love to help you but I can't risk our lives like that.'"

She whipped around and handed Jake and I cups so fast I realized she was running on some kind of autopilot; it was the unfiltered, unwounded version of the militaristic Leah I'd seen after the battle by the cabin, interrogating Quil and Embry. Her pace didn't decrease as she marched back and forth across the kitchen. She was moving at werewolf speed, mind and body.

She stopped and looked at Jacob, her brow furrowed. It was obvious she was furious, and I wondered whether or not it was actually Jake and I's dilemma. Her reaction to the Volturi and the potential slavery of the Cullen clan aside, she had never indicated any special connection with Jake, or I, until lately...well, since I'd been back. I supposed I understood better how she and Jake were close; was Jake important enough to Leah for her to risk her own life….her fragile but crucial standing with the pack? I listened to her mumble and wondered.

"What I don't get," she was saying, "is _why_ he thinks he'll be safe if they know about us." Her movement began again, her legs rapidly tick tocking back and forth across the kitchen and her dark eyes going back over Jake and I's faces over and over. "They'll kill us now, or later—as long as we're capable of producing another Jake there's no reason for them not to." I started to see where her mind was going. "It would be easy, if they tortured Edward, or Emily—any of the imprints, really, let alone the mind reader—they'd only have to kill a few of us. The gene is rare….and our parents are probably too old to have another batch of wolves…or they're already _dead_." She spat the last word, but didn't slow down. "If they kill Seth…" Ah, I thought. That's the key. She was staring at Jacob again. "After you, Seth is the next natural choice for Alpha." Jacob nodded, and I started to ask when she saw my face and interrupted. "Jake's grandfather was the chief when the Cullens came the first time. My grandfather was his right hand whatever. So, if Sam hadn't phased first—" her face twisted brutally, different agonies masking her beautiful features—"Jake here would be our chief now."

"Probably not," Jake answered in a low, rasping voice. Leah looked at him appraisingly.

"Yes you would've. You never would have watched the rest of them go through the change without taking care of them, once you knew you could."

"But I did—that's exactly what I did," Jake said, his dark eyes locked on hers.

"No," Leah gruffly rebuked him, and then paced the kitchen again. "What you did was phase after Sam, _long_ after him, so that he was well established in his position, and then leave when you knew you might hurt him, and the pack." She watched the ground ahead of her, face down. Jake sighed. "I know you think differently, because of Bella here." She kept her eyes on the floor, her curtain of hair swaying behind her. "But you still found a way to help us. You were the protector of the entire damn pack for years, and even when every other human thing about you was dead that wasn't."

"I failed, Leah," Jake said softly, and she stopped again.

"_You_ failed? No." Leah's voice was harsh. "Our fathers failed. They withheld vital information until it was too late for all of us, and they don't know anything useful about who we're fighting. It would have been _useful_ to know why we're supposed to kill pairs—they didn't know. They didn't explain that vampires basically imprint. They didn't know that _proximity_ to active pack members who fought vampires—_even if there were no actual vampires nearby_—might cause children to phase. We're still not sure how that works. I mean, they didn't even know—"  
"About you," I whispered. She halted, staring.

"They know nothing about me," she growled, and then began to move again, but Jacob's gentle voice reached out to her.

"It's not all their fault, Leah." She kept pacing, rapid silent movements back and forth. "You know they would trade places with us even now if they could." I thought about Billy, sitting in Emily's. His face had deep lines now in new places, his hair was streaked with white. Leah's voice ripped me back.

"_My_ father can't. My father can never trade places with my brother, and there is no one on earth who can trade places with me," she said in the same hard voice, and then caught her breath, staring at something outside, through the open back door.

"I'd trade with you," a soft voice said. Tears made Emily hard to hear, and she stepped through the door just as Jacob let me go. I quickly ran to her and wrapped my arms around her. It was impossible to hear Emily crying and not want to comfort her, but I should have thought about how my impulsive reaction would affect Leah.


	45. Chapter 45

_I should have thought about how my impulsive reaction would affect Leah._

Shocked back to the moment, I immediately realized Leah had stopped pacing because of the rattling, subsiding growl that shook the floor, then began to fade.

"Don't!" Emily pushed me away and ran towards her cousin, who was already halfway through the opposite door, but froze when Leah turned to face her. Animosity rolled of off Leah like a dense fog; Jacob crossed his arms, his gaze focused on the women in front of him. I knew he wouldn't let Leah hurt Emily, for both of their sakes, and at the moment Leah appeared calm, if furious. She took in a deep breath while she stared down at her cousin.

"You did trade with me," she growled. "That's the whole problem." I saw Emily's shoulders fall and stopped myself from walking towards her again.

"It wasn't like that," Emily gasped. She steadied herself, spreading her small feet slightly further apart, and looked back up at Leah defiantly. "You know it wasn't like that."

"Actually, I don't," Leah snapped. It seemed they hadn't spoken about what had happened, and her words crackled wickedly in the air. "And you don't know anything about what being me _now_ is like, Emily—you got the best part of my life. Trust me, you don't want the rest." Her expression was abruptly cold.

"Leah, you don't understand—"

"—What?" Leah leaned further in, her eyes blanking, nostrils wide. "Maybe you don't understand, Emily—"

I knew something awful was going to happen just before it did. Emily looked at Jake for just a split second, and I saw his sturdy expression falter just as she opened her mouth.

"No!" I screamed, rushing forward. _Sam told Emily about Jacob's imprint._ In a misguided attempt to reunite with her cousin, Emily was going to tell her that Sam wasn't as strong as Jake—that no one but the true alpha was spared the pull of imprinting. I grabbed her arm and spun her towards me, my voice still echoing in the room. Even though I cared very deeply for both women and wanted them to be friends again, I knew this wasn't the way. I knew it would destroy Leah, not help her understand, and I couldn't let Emily tell her. Not this way.

But it was too late. Leah's nostrils quivered, the adrenaline pumping through the air setting her wolf side aflame. A slight tremor in her hands made me pull Emily away and walk deliberately towards Jake while Leah stared after us.

"What is it, Bella?" Her tone was low, monotone. Jacob began to move forward but she put her hand up and spoke in a voice with ancient echoes. "Stay there, Jacob." She'd pulled rank on him, and because he'd rejoined the pack, he had no choice but to obey. Ripples flew across his skin like a nest of snakes had hatched inside of him.

"This is the worst possible time to talk about this, Leah," I whispered, and I hoped she appreciated that this was true. We were in my father's house, facing horrible challenges and dark possibilities at every turn; it was no time to rip the pack apart. Emily didn't know her cousin any more, and she hadn't been privy to her feelings in years. She couldn't have known how raw this wound still was.

"There's no time like the present," Leah said in her dead voice. Her head lowered on her neck as she walked towards me, eyes unblinking. When her head cocked to the side I knew Leah was moving with her wolf and I involuntarily stepped back, pulling a reluctant Emily with me. A blurry body suddenly blocked Leah from view; Jake was fighting against the alpha command. If he and Leah phased—if they _fought_--Emily and I would die. We had to get out of there.

I grabbed her tiny hand and dragged Emily towards the back door, her feet pulling on the floor. I was using all of my strength before I realized what was happening.

She was _fighting_ me. She wanted to stay.

_"Leah!"_ She screamed, desperately trying to rip her hand away. "Leah—my face! _My face_!" Her words literally shocked me, and I froze, gaping. She quickly yanked her hand free and scrambled back across the floor to the two blurring hulks_. "I traded my face Leah!"_ Emily fell over her own feet, and the sound of her frail, human body hitting the floor brought me back to my senses. I rushed over to her as she wriggled to look up at her cousin, the scar tissue almost too painful to look at; when her back arched I could see the purple ruin where it ran under her hairline and all the way down her chest. No tears could fall from her devastated eye. The two wolves were anxiously trembling, Emily on the floor in front of them, the image of supplication.

"When he came to me—I told him no. I said _no_, Leah, I called him horrible names and I told him he wasn't good enough for you—and he _agreed_, Leah, he said it was true, I was right—" She didn't bother to stand, and her tears reached her mouth, making her gasp. "But he couldn't leave me alone. I could see it on his face, and he frightened me—I told him no, Leah." She inhaled, one of her hands sliding in the growing puddle. I realized the wolves were no longer shaking, and saw Jacob lean down to help Emily when Leah's hand flew up again. Instead, she crouched low and brought her own face near her cousin's.

"What happened when you told him no, Emily?" I knew she'd seen it in Sam's mind. Why was she asking now?

"He got upset," Emily whispered, a wet sound. "He got upset, and there was no one to help him—you know what his dad is like, Leah, he was all alone—"

"_What. Happened_." Leah's expression was fine and brutal.

"He phased," Emily whispered back. "And then…what I needed changed."

"You needed him because he disabled you—"

"No!" Emily sounded horrified. "I needed help, because…I could only see out of one eye, I couldn't use my left hand for the first couple months….Leah, no one would ever love me again." She looked imploringly, desperately at her cousin. "I didn't _choose_ him, Leah. I didn't _take_ him." Another tear hit the floor. "I never wanted to hurt you—can you see how it happened? There was no one else, Leah, after all the cards and the flowers—I was going to spend my life alone with this _face_."

"The face that he gave you," Leah whispered.

"I know," Emily nodded. "We're both trapped, Leah. He didn't want to want me in the first place, and now we will be together forever. Because of _this_."

Leah stood and turned her back. When I leaned over to help pull Emily up, she didn't stop Jacob from using his strong hands to steady us. "If he wasn't what you needed to begin with…" Leah faced towards the street, the front door open in the other room and late afternoon light dancing across the floor to where she stood in the kitchen. I felt the tension return as soon as Emily sighed. "Why couldn't he leave you alone, if that was what you really wanted from him? Isn't that the _opposite_ of the way this shit is supposed to work?" She turned towards us once more. Emily looked at Jake and I, and I hoped that my expression told her enough to keep us out of it.

"Because…" She awkwardly began, looking at her hands for a minute. I found myself praying, praying to anything, _please Emily don't, not when we're almost safe_…I almost threw up when I heard Leah finish her sentence.

"Because not everyone can be Jake," she finished the thought. I grabbed Emily's hand, then whipped my head towards the back door when a new voice entered the room.

"That's right, Leah." Sam filled up the entire doorway, his expression dark. "Not everyone can be Jacob."


	46. Chapter 46

"_Not everyone can be Jacob."_

"What a pity," Leah said. Her voice was once again in that haunted monotone; her head tilted slightly to one side as her ribcage undulated beneath it, lowering towards the ground, muscles coiling. "What a shame the alpha we got stuck with was so weak he _attacked_ his own imprint when she didn't do what he wanted."

"You're out of line, Leah," Sam's deep voice held a menace as keen as a blade. I had to look closer to see that his hands were clenched in fists, desperately clinging to his humanity. Jacob's arm pushed Emily and I behind him, and I held her tiny body in my arms as our heads whipped back and forth between the former lovers in front of us.

"You were out of line," Leah replied, "when you cut my cousin's face off so she'd say _yes_." The words were a whip, cracking sharply across the room. "You were out of line when you let the council kiss your ass, when you didn't _step down_ once Jake phased."

"Leah—" I could clearly see Sam beginning to shake, and I felt tears running down my face. This can't be it, I thought. _Not after everything—this can't be the way we go._ Not in my father's kitchen, not by our own hands.

"You're out of line now, Sam, letting us all wait here to die at their convenience. Letting the pack think we're safe." Leah's fingertips were splayed wide on the floor, her body curled like a sprinter's—except for her face. Her beautiful, murderous face, tears running freely down her cheeks, eyes open and staring and black.

"The bloodsuckers poisoned your mind, Leah," Sam whispered. He was crying too.

"They were too late for that, Sam." Leah inhaled. "I was poisoned years ago," she whispered, and then she leapt. The speed and force of the blow knocked them both through the open back door, and I heard the snarls erupt just as I realized Jake was right behind them.

"No!" I screamed, running, blind. Emily and I held hands like small children, stumbling through the back door and halting where we stood on the threshold. The sight before us was like something I would have dreamed, something only seen in the lurid dark of my nightmares.

The silver wolf was fast, and vicious. Heavy tracks of dirt gashed through the yard as she leapt and dove; Leah was fighting to kill, to die—Sam, his tail low, let her throw him and then lashed out as if he couldn't help it. He whimpered as she snagged his forepaw in her mouth and a sickening crunch echoed across the yard; he spun, growling, and ripped fiercely at her head, shredding her ear. Blood flew through the air. Jacob phased just as Emily wailed, a keening, haunted sound, unbearably human over the animal grunts and rumbles.

She pulled her hand away and ran at the flashing black and silver huddle in the ground, the red wolf snarling, enormous, but facing away from her.

I screamed. I screamed as though my whole body were surrendering—as if the sound were the only thing left in me, as if it could cleave the shivering bloody mess back in to two separate, thinking beings, and as it echoed across the yard they fell, heavy and silent as tombstones, to the earth.

The red wolf stood over them. Emily fell on their bodies, one hand on each, weeping. None of us moved for what felt like an eternity; the shadows of the trees slid silently across the ground before the two stood, Emily between them, and began to walk in to the woods. The red wolf turned and looked at me.

Jacob's fur was long, much longer than Sam's; his size was easily double that of Leah, and still much larger than the black wolf's. His body looked more like a bear's, except for the long legs, clearly made for running, and the broad glistening deadliness in his mouth. Both of his ears faced backwards, tracking the other wolves with keen hearing, but his eyes stayed on me, searching.

I didn't know what to do. Should I follow them? Was I welcome? I wasn't a tribe member, or even a pack member, really; I wasn't an imprint, and Jake and I had only been together for….best not to think of it. It felt so much deeper, like so much more…but still. Leah's words stung, although at the time they weren't directed at me. _This is a pack issue._

The Jacob wolf took a step towards me. I realized how risky it was, what he was doing; the sun was closer to setting and we were out in the open. Before I realized what I was doing I ran to him, my hands lost in the rich fur. A grinding, purring sound from the enormous ribcage startled me back, but I pressed my face against him again.

"I don't know if I should come with you," I whispered. "I don't know if I belong there." My hands dug in to his pelt, fingers laced in the softness. Something strange began to happen—a shimmering snap of the air like a blast of hot wind—and then my fingers were entangled in the beautiful black hair of a kneeling Jacob Black. He stood and held me against him.

"You belong where ever I am, Bells," he whispered. I nodded, took his hand, and turned to face the woods.

The words hit me before we reached the clearing where they stood—the clearing where, years before, I'd watched a different group of legends face off; in retrospect, that meeting had been easier to deal with. The good and the bad were clearly distinct from one another, as simple as light and dark. There had been no tears. What I saw before me now was a family being wrenched violently apart.

"Traitor!" Quil screamed, livid. Hot, angry tears gathered in his eyes before a quick hand brushed them away, as if they, too, were condemned by his words. "I _knew_ it, Leah—didn't I say it in the diner? _Didn't_ I?" He stormed, pacing, the dense rage around him spreading and swirling everywhere. Embry's face watched the ground, still and heavy as a thundercloud behind him. The little boys, including the almost-men Colin and Brady, shivered together in a group not far off with Jared and Paul like brooding bookends at either side, grumbling and shifting restlessly. Seth slumped on the ground, a small ways away from the raging Quil, but nearer to a broken Sam.

The former alpha was collapsed in the dirt, one hand clutching the other to his chest. He didn't look up, and his shoulders were gently shaking. I had never seen any of the wolves look so vulnerable--least of all the one who'd been first to shoulder the burden of their destiny--with the exception of my desperate, pleading Jacob. The image was unfamiliar, out of place anywhere but in a nightmare.

In front of them all, as if on a tiny stage, was Leah. She held her ribs, looking like she was trying to keep her body from pouring outside of itself, and the top bandage holding her together was Emily. Leah's cousin glared furiously out at the savage, wounded men, and it was she who replied to Quil's raving.

"She's a traitor? A traitor for _thinking_? For wondering why all of this happened, for questioning Sam's decisions?" Emily's voice was tiny in comparison to the booming echoes of the others, but her words had a powerful effect. Sam never looked up, and never stilled; his grief echoed in low tones across the ground. Emily continued. "Do you—do _you_, Paul, or you Quil—really think you would have behaved differently, if any of you were able to actually _think_?"

"We think," Jared barked. Paul snarled, but I saw his hands trembling and the shine of wetness on his cheeks. None of them wanted to accuse Leah, all of them loved her. It was wretched to see the agony plain in all of them.

"She attacked him," Quil wailed. "She attacked the goddamn alpha—your _husband_, Emily!" The giant men sounded like children, a chorus of pain erupting at his words. "She was trying to kill him—"

"—She was trying to die." Embry silenced everyone else. "Leah is smarter than the rest of us." He looked around at them. "She's the fastest, sure, but who cares—she's the most clever, the most insightful, strategic, the smartest, however you want to say it…You didn't want to win that fight, did you Leah?" He took a step forward, one tiny step, and Quil crumpled to the ground beside him. "You didn't want to kill Sam, you wanted to make him or Jacob kill you." One more step. "Or us. You didn't want to win."


	47. Chapter 47

_One more step. "Or us. You didn't want to win."_

"No!" Emily screamed, clutched the body of the woman next to her. "No, no, no…" Her voice trailed away, lost in sobs against Leah's slim shoulder. Leah did not move. Her face was blank, her tears lost in the bloody mud caking her cheeks. I realized her ear would never completely heal, the ragged edges frayed beyond repair. Without noticing, I'd drifted close to the two women, and I sat a few feet behind them. I didn't want to touch them, to interrupt—I saw how much they loved each other, and needed this crucial bubble to form around them. Even Leah, who didn't push or retreat; even Leah, who wanted to die, rather than live with knowing what had really happened between the man she loved and her cousin.

Leah loved Emily. Emily loved Leah. I left them to do that, but hoped another body beside them would somehow allay some of the roiling fear and pain that lapped at their island from the pack.

Their entirety suddenly shifted away from the women like the retreating tide in an instant: one word from Jacob's mouth. "Sam." It was a name, and a command; everything was still, the tears, the grief, except for the crumbled alpha, who lifted his head. Misery held every feature in a vise-like grasp, his pinched mouth and bruised eyes staring out at the two women in front of him. Jacob continued. "Speak."

"I told Emily." He looked up at Jake then, and a thread of shame spooled out, coloring his grief. "I told Emily about your imprint." Shock quieted any remaining sounds from the pack, and the breeze in the trees filled the background with a mellow hum. "When you and Bella…Emily didn't know what to do. She was terrified that you would imprint and leave Bella, and I couldn't….I wanted to reassure her that something like _this_ wouldn't happen again. She was desperate to tell Leah—she thought Leah would understand better, if she knew…if she knew that I was weak. That I couldn't help myself—that I'm not the one. I'm not supposed to be alpha, and it shows—I'm not perfect. I'm not—"

Jacob cut him off before he could continue degrading himself. "But no one actually told Leah. I was in the kitchen with them…" He turned towards Leah. "And you already knew. How?"

"I wasn't sure." Her voice was the low, brutal monotone from the kitchen. "I'd been suspicious ever since you came back, Jake. The first time." Her eyes stared at nothing. The pack was hypnotized; I realized none of them knew, except Embry, that Jacob had imprinted. "You were so hurt, of course, and I told myself that if you'd wanted to live you would have had to come back to us, to heal…but then, I spend a lot of time alone, running…Seeing things. Smelling things. Meeting strange things out there in the woods." She never blinked. "I found the grave, but I didn't know exactly what it was, for a long time." Her eyes finally turned towards him. "I just knew it was one of the places I could go if I needed to find you." They watched each other.

I'd forgotten his imprint was buried somewhere in the woods around La Push. I shivered, thinking of his lonely years, the private grave under the pine trees. Leah's voice brought me back.

"But then, when Bella came back and you almost killed us to get to her…I started to think." Her eyes took in Jacob, steady and unblinking. "You don't know yourself, Jake…you don't forgive yourself. You would never have tried to be with her—knowing she was over Edward—if you thought you would imprint and leave her." She stared hollowly into his eyes. "The way you reacted to killing those vampires made it final. I didn't want to know—I didn't want to think about it. But I knew." Her eyes slid over to Sam. "When I started looking for proof, it was everywhere. Even in Sam's memory." Her eyes locked on to the broken alpha.

"But that's not why," Jacob said evenly. "Why, Leah?"

"Embry's not quite right," she said after a moment. Heavy silence, like a thick frost, coated all of us while we waited for her to finish. "I guess I lost it, just now."

"That's not an answer, Leah." The words came from her little brother, now standing, tentatively leaning towards her with horror on his face. Looking back at him, fresh tears trickled through the filth on her cheeks.

"I love you, Seth," she said, and the inflection in her voice made her seem alive again. "And Sam—I love you too, Sam." She looked around at them, her gaze ending at Emily. "I love all of you. You're the only things I love." Leah inhaled deeply, her words clearly hurting her to say. "My life is awful. It has its moments, but at the end of the day, it's miserable. But I love all of you. But Sam—" she took another deep breath—"when I knew that the imprinting made you _hurt_ Emily, it just confirmed for me that maybe…maybe you're not supposed to lead us." She looked around again. "We're all going to die, if those vampires from Italy come here. Do you think they're going to let us keep living and breeding and making more vampire slayers? Do you think they're going to let Seth live, once they find out he's in the alpha line? Do you think they'll let _your_ children live, Sam?" Her voice grew frantic, and she leaned forward. "It's just like before—we didn't believe that more would come, and they came. And here we are, on a reservation—there are only seven hundred of us _left_. Don't you _see_?"

The pack was frozen. All the smallest wolves were still, silent; Sam stared at Leah. I felt conspicuously white, my earlier exchange with Jacob ebbing away in the gloom, and suddenly Leah turned to me. I felt like I was looking at pure madness, her eyes bright and fevered; I rallied myself for an emotional beating in the second I had before her words hit me.

"Bella—_tell_ them. Tell them the _truth_." Leah's tone was begging. Emily turned to stare at me too, and all the dark eyes before me glimmered in the dark.

Of all things to think of at the moment, James's face appeared in my mind. Relentless, timeless, and utterly indifferent to suffering. Slowly, Victoria's replaced his; tireless, waiting years to strike. I looked back at Leah.

"She's right," I said. She was. I didn't know if even Edward had thought that far ahead; he'd made a point of saying they wouldn't spare the lives of the pack, but Leah was right. They were more than ruthless, they were timeless. They could pick the lineage of the pack off one by one, taking a century to do it; they could wipe them all out at once, and had the money and power to make it appear natural.

"How?" Embry came closer, standing by Seth. I saw Quil stand up and lean against Jared, one arm draped weakly over his shoulder. Embry's fierce eyes swept over Leah and Emily, then came back to me. Deep and resonant, Jacob's voice stilled everything again.

"Come out, Edward," he said. Quil abruptly stood upright and howled, fury infiltrating the temporary lull in the pack's moving bodies. Edward came slowly out from the tree line. "Is this what you wanted to happen? Is this what you were talking about at the diner?" The low fury in Jake's voice did nothing to appease the growing hostility of the wolves.

"No," Edward said in his low, clear voice. His skin reflected the starlight above, a faint shimmer creating deep shadows in its absence around his hidden eyes. "I wanted Leah to tell Sam of her concerns." He looked around at the women, his head bowed. "I didn't know—for sure—if she knew of the imprint. She is, as you have said, very clever. Clearly, she can hide what she likes from everyone believing themselves privy to her thoughts."

"I didn't tell anyone what I was thinking because I didn't want to think it," Leah snapped. "I didn't want to think about the fact that Sam—or his imprint, or whatever the hell—attacked my cousin when you walked away from yours. That's what happened, I'm guessing?"

"Don't change the subject," Jacob growled. Another hush fell over the clearing. Edward looked back at the pack and picked his head up defiantly.

"Leah and I have run in to each other in the woods many times over the years." I felt surprise, but I realized the pack did not because the tension stayed at exactly the same hum. "We've rarely had anything approaching a civil conversation, until after the recent battle…" He looked over at Leah. "I felt I should apologize for my family's contribution to her difficulties—an apology which, I'm sure you can guess, was roundly refused." The tiny smile on Edward's face seemed out of place in the somber gathering. "But, given my unfortunate talents, I saw shades of her concerns, and I mentioned them to her. We spoke about them only once before I saw her in the diner." He raised his head to Jacob, his jaw firm.

"She attacked the alpha," Quil said again. He sounded like he was in shock. "You made her do it."


	48. Chapter 48

"_You made her do it."_

"Do you really think _I_ could make _her_—of all of you—do anything? Ever?" Edward spun on them, frustration darkening his tone. "She is what you said—strategic. Clever. And she is a warrior—she understands _war_. That is what we spoke of, nothing more."

Edward respected Leah, like the rest of the men around her; her bitterness and frightfully impulsive temper all contributed to the hold she had on them, but most of all, they knew she saw the future of things in a way that they couldn't. She wasn't psychic, like Alice, but Leah was powerful, if fragile. Edward's words hung in the air over the pack, each one slowly taking them in, and they all startled when she spoke.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I shouldn't have attacked Sam." She looked over them again, and her voice lowered back in to the dreadful monotone from before. "I didn't really want you to kill me. But I don't want to watch you die—I am angry. I am angry at so many things…but I shouldn't have attacked you, Sam."

"Yes you should've," he whispered back to her, the miserable words carrying in spite of the soft sound. "I still don't understand what happened—why it made me—"

"What if it didn't make you?" Leah asked, her voice breaking. "Was it you? If she said no, if she didn't want you—"

"Leah," Jacob spoke, and his voice was low and deep and wide as a river over the desperate, heated sobs now filling the air. "It wasn't the imprint that made that happen. That was an accident—he didn't have anyone to help him learn how to phase. You know this, you've seen his memories—"

"If she needed him to leave her alone, why couldn't he?" Leah erupted. Emily rubbed her back with soothing circles, her other hand wrapped over the ones clutching broken ribs. Silence echoed through the clearing. "I've seen that memory—I've _made_ him show me, over and over and over, and each time I see her face, I see her saying _no_--"

"What if it was me," Emily said. "What if I knew it was wrong, but inside, under everything I said—"

"Oh nice," Leah snarled, her usual manner abruptly returning. "No means yes? Just like date rape? Perfect."

"That's not what I meant," Emily retorted. She continued to rub Leah's back, even as the women scowled at each other. "What if it knew it had to weaken me, to make me say yes? If imprinting is about improving the line…maybe it didn't give us a choice. Maybe it made Sam take our choices away." She looked deeply in to her cousin's eyes. "I've forgiven him, Leah. I've thought of all the ways it could have happened, and that's all I know."

"So imprinting date-raped both of you," muttered Leah. "Still disgusting."

Emily shrugged, but it was Seth who spoke. "What about now? Is it still gross when they love each other and have kids?" He looked earnest, as if he really wanted to know; his eyes raked across all of them, finding Jared and Jacob in particular. "If imprinting is really so bad…."

"I love Emily," Sam said. He was still planted on his knees, but he watched the two women carefully. "I've never forgotten you, Leah…I think everybody knows that. But underneath what happened…I do love Emily. For herself, not because of anything else."

"And I love you," Emily said simply. She and Sam both softened; I remembered Emily's tears at my kitchen table and hoped that this meant she could talk to him the next time her heart ached over the wrong kinds flowers, the small things that make life pass easily. I hoped Leah would still let Emily touch her when we all left this dark place.

"I never loved my imprint," Jacob said, and everybody was silenced once again. He looked at me, and I nodded; I knew he wanted to make sure nothing he said would make me uncomfortable. Edward stared hard at the tall man, an inscrutable expression on his face; occasionally he would glance at Leah, but I was the only one who saw, and when he caught me looking he gave me a tentative smile I gladly returned. Edward had always been attracted to noble people; Leah was that, for all her flaws. It seemed obvious there was some clear connection between them, even if she didn't want one to exist.

"My imprint was a child of the moon," Jake said, and the pack hung on each word as he detailed their meeting. At one point in the story we were all startled by a gasp from Edward, who then waved us on, embarrassed that he'd interrupted. Raising an eyebrow, Jake continued, explaining everything, from the vampire attack to the plan to prevent more from reaching La Push, until Quil stopped him.

"Why?" The hurt in his voice made Embry's stance change, reaching out; Jacob walked towards him and then stopped when he saw Quil's shaking hands. "Why didn't you ask me to help with the burial?"

"Because you were mad at him already, Quil," Sam said from his post on the ground. "You were furious when he left."

"And you would've told me," Leah said. Embry hung his head, but she clucked her tongue. "I don't blame you, Embry. Seeing how I reacted tonight…" When he lifted his head again, his expression hopeful, a steadier Quil came back and stood beside him.

"Yeah," Quil muttered. "_I've_ never been a traitor, hiding mutinous thoughts—"

"Because you can't ever shut up and you say them all out loud," Leah cut him off, her tone dour. Emily giggled, and Edward hid a smile. For a minute, things seemed alright, and maybe that was why, for the first time, one of the little wolves spoke.

"So you didn't want us?" It was the thin one from the night we'd fought Victoria, the one Alice had spoken to. His hair was long, sun-burnt streaks of red cutting through the deep black visible even under the night sky, and he twisted a piece between his fingers nervously as he spoke to the pack. "You tried to make sure there weren't any new wolves?"

"They just didn't want us to have to deal with imprinting, _duh_," snapped an even younger boy, one of the small ones that could never sit still.

"They think being a wolf is hard," said the largest, oldest of them. He stared out at the adults. "It is hard, isn't it?" When he stood up, I was instantly, painfully reminded of the Jacob I'd first known—tall and strong, but naturally so. The wolf was already pinning more muscles to his bones, stretching his skeleton, but the boy looked sharply like my slender Jacob from First Beach. The same wide mouth, the same bright eyes. "I thought it would be great—to be strong, and tough like you guys. Nobody can mess with you." He didn't have the youthful Jake's sunny disposition, though; this boy had suffered in the world, and it showed. "But you make it seem so…_bad_." His lips twisted, worry pouring out of his young face.

"Being a protector is not easy," Sam said quietly. The boy looked down, but the younger one who'd piped up about imprinting leapt to his feet and stood tall.

"You're not even alpha any more," he said in his high voice, and one of the other young ones began to tug at his hand. He yanked it away and boldly took another step forward, the older boy now watching Sam from behind his hair. "Maybe being alpha isn't easy, but—"

"Nothing about this is easy," Leah snapped. Emily lightly slapped her arm, and Leah furrowed her brow at her cousin before turning back to the children with a softer expression. "Sam was the best alpha for you, wasn't he?"

The younger boy stood on one leg and cocked his head, but the older boy nodded without hesitation. Leah nodded back.

"Lots of tribes have a war chief _and_ a peace chief." This came from the third oldest boy, also thin, also from the night with Victoria. He stood next to his friends, his long hair pulled back in a tight braid. "Maybe Sam is a peace chief."

"I want Leah to be chief then," said the sassy younger boy. "I don't want Jacob to be alpha."


	49. Chapter 49

"_I don't want Jacob to be alpha."_

To my surprise, a low resounding growl rumbled out of the warrior wolves; Jared began to move towards the younger boys, the brutish hustle of an older brother in his stride. Jacob wordlessly held up a hand, and he froze. The brazen little wolf shivered, then lifted his head even higher.

"Why?" This from Emily, now still beside her cousin, hand locked around shoulder, hair tangled together. They incredulously watched the young boy as he stepped in front of the three older ones and faced Jacob.

"Because I don't know Jacob," he said in his high voice. "Jacob scares my mom when she sees him at the grocery store." Quil snickered until the boy continued. "She says he doesn't take care of his dad, and he ditched town because of a white girl." My eyebrows flew up on my face and I felt the urge to run. Almost as if they knew, Leah and Emily each reached behind and grabbed me without looking, pulling me closer as the child continued. "And Sam got beat up by Leah, and it looks like he might have beat up Emily." The child pushed his lip out. "I don't want an alpha that fights with girls."

"But you'll take me as an alpha? _I'm_ a girl," said Leah, clearly trying to diffuse the tension. Sam stared at the ground.

"You're not a regular kind of girl," the little boy said. He was starting to get very nervous; even the bigger boys behind him were surreptitiously whispering at him to shut up. His eyes widened and he took a deep breath. "You can't have babies." It seemed like no one could breathe. Even the trees were still until she spoke.

"Did your mom tell you that too?" Leah's voice was low, bitter, but trying for a joke even if it didn't quite work. Quil swore quietly and kicked at the ground while Embry stared, open mouthed, at the child. I squeezed her hand.

"No," the little brash boy said. His voice wavered, but he still stood tall. All the young wolves looked at the ground, ashamed and afraid. "We all know, from when we've phased." He looked up at the older wolves. "We know about all of you, your moms and dads and…we think you're good wolves. Good protectors." The oldest boy, Jacob's look-alike, raised his head to watch the response of the adults. "Even if it didn't work, and you didn't want us, and even if you fight with each other." He looked defiant for a minute. "But you're all scared of Jacob, and he scares my mom, and I don't want him to be alpha." His bravery spent, he pushed back behind the bigger boys and curled in a tight ball next to his friend.

"It's not that we didn't want you," Jake said, and his voice, the deepest and farthest reaching of them all, was still kind and soothing after rejection. "We didn't want you to have to deal with the hard parts of being a wolf—like imprinting. Or even fighting. If you've seen all of us, you know how much it hurts to get bitten—"

"But you survived it," said the thin one with reddish hair. "The hardest part of being a wolf isn't fighting vampires—it's you. It's you fighting _each_ _other_." The younger child made them bold, and they watched Jacob for his response. "Leah and Sam, _and_ you. We know about you. We saw you fight Sam, in memories."

I inhaled sharply, and this time Leah squeezed my hand, as if to say, _wait. It's not what you think._

"Jacob's grandfather was the true alpha," Sam said. He stood suddenly, and Jacob moved next to him. The two men looked like they could be brothers, even though Jacob was so much larger. "But I phased before Jake, like we talked about, and there was no one to help me learn how to do it. We think Jake took so long because…he was in love. He was happy. And it made it harder for him to change." Jacob looked over at me briefly. "When Jake had a hard time and left and then came back, we had to figure some stuff out."

"You thought he wanted to die," accused the little boy from the back.

"I did. And I thought he could try all he liked and never do it." Sam's tone was fatherly, patient. "Why don't you let Jacob tell you what he wanted?" The boy's faces became expectant.

"I wanted to take care of my people," Jake said, neatly dodging the question without lying. "And all of us decided the best way to do that would be to make sure no vampires got even close to you guys, and because there can only be one alpha, for me to stay away." His heavy hand rested on Sam's shoulder. "We disagreed about how to do it, sometimes, but it wasn't fighting."

"Well, not _real_ fighting," Sam said, and the two men laughed low with each other.

"We knew we didn't want vampires near La Push," Jake finished, "and we had to figure out how to do it, and it wasn't easy. Nobody," and here he looked at Leah, suddenly, "wanted to die more than they wanted to take care of you."

"I don't mind fighting, but I don't want to imprint," said the oldest boy. He looked at the men in front of him and quickly crossed his arms, his hair still hanging in his eyes.

"That's because _he loves Leah_," sang the bold little boy behind him, and Quil howled with laughter as the older one started to reach backwards into the giggling mess of little wolves, embarrassed and flushed.

"Maybe if Jacob is alpha we won't," said the red head. The group hushed, and the other thin one pushed his friend's shoulder to make him continue. "Maybe…if Jake is alpha, we won't like, fall in love with our imprints. We could imprint, but we don't have to like, marry them, or whatever."

"Gross," said a different youngster, but Jacob and Sam were looking at each other.

"I think imprinting makes stuff easy," said the brash boy's friend. "Just don't fall in love, you dorks."

"Gross!" Repeated the same little boy, and then they began to wrestle, and then the older wolves were gathering together. The oldest boy watched them go and sighed, and Jacob, noticing, waved him closer. The two thin ones hesitantly followed, but all three hung back as the adults began to weave in and among themselves.

The wolves sniffed each other, even in human form; Leah's nose wrinkled from where she sat, and the men, coming closer to one another, all did the same. I realized that settling these problems in human form meant some of the subtleties of wolf mannerisms were lost, but that searching through these chemicals helped calm them and re-establish order. Leah and Emily stayed seated, their hands firm around mine. I felt like I was intruding until I noticed that Edward was also present, lingering on the edges close to where we sat and nodding to each pack member that ventured near him. The three younger boys stood as far from him as they could without losing their tenuous place in the gathering.

"So," Jacob said finally, looking around at the boys, "no imprinting, huh?" His double nodded, mouth firm. Jake looked back at Sam. "What do you think?"

"Who knows?" Sam shrugged, still favoring his arm. He looked older, but somehow lighter, as if a weight had been lifted from him. "It seems as good a theory as any."

"What's the theory? As the alpha goes, so goes the pack?" Leah's voice was still ragged and low, but animated. She looked up at the men from where she sat and tried to straighten herself, stopping only when a dull pop reverberated through her ribcage. Sam winced, but she waved her hand for him to continue.

"I think the kid's got a point—maybe evolution is trying to take us away from imprinting." He looked over at Jake. "If Jacob could take or leave his imprint…" Sam could not raise his eyes to face anyone, but he continued to speak. "Maybe, if he's the alpha, it will help guide the kids away from imprinting. Somehow."

"What if Jake's just a freak?" Quil raised his hands while everyone, including Jacob, laughed. "I'm serious—what if Jake is just a weirdo, and making him alpha just means we've got a weirdo for alpha. Nothing else."

"That's a good question, actually," said Jake. "There's only one of us, anyway, that would be the best bet for an alpha that doesn't imprint." He didn't look at her, but Leah sighed.

"Right. Because all jokes aside, I am a freak." No one found they could laugh with her, just like they couldn't laugh before. Emily laid her head on her cousin's slim, muscled shoulder.

"Leah, when you stop phasing, your ability to have children will return." Sam stared at her. If he were able, it seemed like he would have traded places with his wife.

"That's what you think," she grunted. "From what I can tell, being as there's only ever been one freak like me, there's no guarantee that's true."


	50. Chapter 50

_Emily laid her head on her cousin's slim, muscled shoulder._

"Leah, when you stop phasing, your ability to have children will return." Sam stared at her. If he were able, it seemed like he would have traded places with his wife.

"That's what you think," she grunted. "From what I can tell, being as there's only ever been one freak like me, there's no guarantee that's true."

Surprising me, Jacob turned once more to the three young boys that hovered behind him. "Listen. This discussion affects the three of you—and the other little ones—more than anybody." He turned back to face the pack. "I'm only alpha right now because I needed to be. Before we leave tonight we should decide who the next alpha is, and the bratty little guy over there had a good point." He exhaled, looked down, and then raised his head once more. "You are all still afraid of me, and with good reason, I think. I'm still not the best candidate for alpha." He turned to look at Sam, and then pointedly looked back at the three boys. "Sam is a great alpha. We don't understand what happened when he imprinted on Emily"—here he shot a firm look at them—"but I want you to know that he's worked hard to make sure the same thing will never happen to you. None of you were left alone when you phased. What happened today...Leah is a warrior, and their relationship is complicated."

Jacob left many things unsaid, but I felt none of us knew if there was any more closure to be had. Sam and Emily would be left to tidy their marriage, and maybe now, secretly, they were both relieved that everything was out in the open. The severity of Emily's scar was nothing compared to the difficulty they both faced in a life with someone they felt trapped with. As if she heard me, Emily turned and smiled at me briefly before turning back to the group, and Sam's eyes lovingly followed her movements. He did truly love her.

The group was avidly discussing Jacob's words; Embry asked Sam if he wanted to be alpha, and Sam, amazingly, shrugged. His eyes kept coming back to Emily, and I wondered how long he'd been waiting to stop phasing. Jared said Paul should be alpha and everyone laughed, even Paul. Colin and Brady shuffled back and forth between the three youngest ones, who they plainly felt more comfortable with, and the older pack members, who they wanted to belong with. Jacob spoke animatedly with Sam, who shook his head, and slowly, their voices lowered, all of the men gathering in a tight circle. Leah, of course, objected.

"I can't hear you," she whined, and Jake looked over at her and frowned.

"Your ribs still hurt?" Embry looked up now as well, concerned.

"No," she lied, and then started to try and get up, Emily's hands fluttering in protest. Embry's face clouded over as he reached for her and Edward's gilded voice got there first.

"They're unsure whether you can be alpha," he said. Embry halted and stood up, towering over all of us.

"They don't trust your temper," he clarified, not to be outdone by the vampire. "Everybody knows how smart you are."

"I'm not that damn smart," Leah muttered, settling with her weight more firmly against Emily and I, silently but obviously relieved that she didn't have to move yet. "And I can't be alpha, with my temper. They're absolutely right." She locked eyes with Embry. "Jacob should be alpha. That's the way its supposed to be."

"Jacob is afraid that if he stays he will continually draw more vampires here, endangering the children. He doesn't want to be alpha." Edward stood close, but remained somehow aloof; he flitted closer and put a light scarf over my shoulders, then quickly returned to his post. I grinned after him, and he shot me a bashful smile before returning his intent gaze on the circle of men. When he thought I wasn't looking, he once again let his eyes flit back to Leah, in rotation with the group.

Leah looked once again at Embry. "Tell him what I said, please." Embry nodded, and walked back to the group.

"Leah, isn't it important for you to know what's going on?" I was worried; how could they decide without her? Leah was _second_, even if her trial was only temporarily on hold—or was she? Jacob's status threw the entire group dynamic, and I could feel the growing anxiety underneath the jokes and chatter.

"I'll make them uncomfortable, they're scared to speak their minds in front of me," she said in a low voice. Her eyes played over Emily's face. "I always make them uncomfortable, but tonight…I'm still not over what happened with you, cousin." They looked at each other. "I don't like it—something's not right."

"You don't have to like it," Emily said. "I just wanted you to know…Sam's not the strong one, all the time. He's just somebody that got handed a raw deal."

"A raw deal he handed to you," Leah retorted. I grew nervous, remembering the scene from earlier; it seemed like the worst had passed, but who knew, in our strange world, when the worst would next be surpassed? I shook my head and tried not to intrude further.

"I'm telling you, I don't think it was him. It's the imprinting," Emily responded firmly. "And if I've forgiven him, Leah, I'm asking you, as your family, and his, to forgive him too."

Leah looked back at the group and tried to shrug, giving it up with a grimace. "I'll work on it," she said, and thoughtfully chewed her lip. Edward spoke aloud, and I could tell by the wag in her brow that he was addressing her.

"If it matters…Sam has tired of being alpha, Leah. And he is beginning to agree with you." She grunted, and her expression didn't change; Edward seemed to understand, and continued. "They're very close. Five of them, this time."

"Why so many?"

"Because…" Edward's voice faltered, and when he spoke, a gentle awe laced the words. "Because Alice is sending them."

"_What_?" Leah spun around, grimaced again, and then glared at the vampire. He nodded.

"These are different, they're not the ones you've met. I'll go—" he wavered, looking at the trees and absently nodding—"if they've seen her, then they'll know I'm safe as well." Like a streak of glittering lighting, he was past the trees in the space of a heartbeat.

"What's he talking about Leah?" I figured if she was calm, the newcomers weren't vampires, but Jacob didn't share my sense of trust. He was beside us almost as quickly as Edward had left, his dark eyes rapidly dissecting the darkness where Edward had disappeared seconds before.

"Leah, what was that all about?" His nose worked furiously, and I reached out and grasped the two smallest fingers of his hand with my free one. It eased the serious expression on his face.

"Children of the moon." Emily and I both gasped, and Leah stared defiantly up at Jacob. "I've met some of them. Another piece of the puzzle, Jake." She waited, then continued as his breathing normalized. "These aren't the ones I know, though—Edward said Alice sent these."

"You're going to fight then?" I looked back and forth at their confused faces and rushed impatiently on. "Alice sees the future—is she sending you _troops_?"

"_Holy_—" I thought for a brief second that Quil had heard me, but then realized he was looking at the trees. All of us turned together and looked where his eyes lead.


	51. Chapter 51

_All of us turned together and looked where his eyes lead. _

Staring back at us, Edward by their side, were five of the palest, scrawniest children I'd ever seen. Rags covered their filthy frames, and one of them clutched a dirty doll to its chest. They held hands, toddling out in a weak line, smallest last. Emily and I both gasped and covered our mouths; even with the all grief tonight, this was easily the most pathetic thing I'd ever seen.

Even Leah was affected. "Oh my god," she whispered. "They're just kids…"

"They're not vampires? They're so pale…" Embry's stunned voice stumbled through his horrified thoughts out loud, unable to settle on one. "Why are they children—what are we going to do with them, they look like they haven't eaten in _weeks_…"

Sam quietly stepped forward and put his hand on Jacob's shoulder, guiding the new alpha forward. The children halted outside of the circle, firmly gripping each others hands. I inhaled sharply when the tallest one spoke, her voice heart-breakingly frail and weak, though clearly brave.

"We're seeking the Hunter. You call him Jacob." She looked around fiercely at the gathering, her eyes lingering on the small wolves for a moment longer than the rest. Her accent was European, but faded; it sounded like she'd lived in the United States for a while. Her eyes finally rested on Jake, who Sam had positioned in front. "You're him," she said, and it was not a question.

"Alice sent you?" Jacob's voice was welcoming; it occurred to me how much energy he must be spending just to sound gentle. He'd spoken to the children more than anyone else tonight, and his manner with them was nothing but tender. I realized one of my hands had crept over my belly, and self-consciously removed it, my skin reddening.

The little girl was once again staring at the group of younger boys; something hard held her jaw firm as she nodded again before meeting his eyes. "She told us we wouldn't have to fight for place." Her grip on the child next to her suddenly made sense; she was their alpha. They were ranked, their sad, ragged little troop in a line from greatest to least. "But if we have to, we're not afraid." The younger La Push boys stood up to look at her more closely, and a feral growling sound came out of her throat.

"We don't fight for rank," Jacob said firmly. I could tell from the tone he was trying out his alpha voice on her, and it clearly worked; the girl gasped, and the smallest child swiftly ducked behind the one in front of him, afraid. Her mouth clapped closed with a small, audible snap.

"Fine," said the girl, quickly recovering. I wondered what the alpha command did to her; to the La Push wolves, it was like a psychic invasion, disallowing any contradiction unless, of course, you were Jacob. Thinking of his newly shaped body so long ago, the crush of adolescent frustration in his eyes as he tried to defy the command in my bedroom, I studied the young girl. She had the same rigid defiance as Jacob. Maybe it was an alpha thing. Maybe all alphas hated being bossed around, no matter whether they were always _the _alpha or not. Her voice shook me back from the past. "How do we get rank?"

"By growing up." This came from Leah, her narrowed eyes also clearly recovered from the shock of seeing the scavenger children for the first time. "When was the last time you ate?"

"Who are you?" The girl held the hand of the next tightly; she searched Leah's face for the first time. I realized all of the other children were boys. Perhaps this was the first time she'd ever seen another female wolf. _But her mother…_I thought, and then tried to remember the bits and pieces Edward and Jacob had mentioned about the Children of the Moon. It could be that her mother was never infected. Or that she was dead. I shivered, remembering my nightmare, the hot whine of my hidden daughter.

"Leah," came the short reply, and the girl nodded.

"She said there was another girl. A fighter." The pack laughed.

"What are we? Chopped liver?" Ever the cut-up, Quil came closer to the tiny alpha in front of him and leaned down. "We're all fighters here, missy."

"You fight vampires." Again, it wasn't a question. The girl watched Quil warily, and I suddenly noticed her other hand. She held a silver blade deftly against her palm.

"Leah—" I whispered, but all of the wolves looked at me; my adrenaline gave me away. The newcomers didn't notice the swift turns of their heads.

"I know, Bella. So does Quil. Calm down, before you frighten them." Leah muttered at me out of the corner of her mouth. Edward anxiously watched all of us, nearer to the pale children than the rest, but not too close. The youngest watched him with wide eyes and mouthed his thumb.

"Yeah." Quil grinned broadly. "We fight vampires." She studied him before replying. He kept his hands on his knees, bending over, but was still almost three feet taller than her.

"We came to fight them too." Quil hooted, but Embry stepped closer to the girl. Periodically, her eyes darted back to Jacob, but then rested on the men directly in front of her. The knife was well placed; it glinted against her pale skin but without the dim refraction off of Edward, I may have never seen it. It occurred to me that he may have angled himself to purposefully warn the pack, but I couldn't read his expression to say for sure.

"You might be too young to fight them," Embry said quietly. "We've got plenty of big, grown-up fighters here—why don't you get some food, some sleep, and let us show you how we're going to take care of them?"

"You don't know what we can do." The girl again spoke plainly, bluntly; there was no inflection to hint of pride or boastfulness. She looked round at the bunch of men in front of her. "You don't know what we can do when the moon comes." Quil whistled low and rocked back on his heels; Embry's brow furrowed again with his characteristically deep canyon right between his eyes. It was the brash boy, of course, who spoke. He'd drawn nearer, coming to stand in front of his friends, and looked at the ragged lot in front of him with his hands on his hips. "What do you mean, when the moon comes?" He tilted his head the other way. "Like in the movies?"

"We can fight now, if you like," the girl said grimly, and the blade ticked out from behind her palm and flashed boldly. Quil and Embry both put their hands in the air, but the brave, bratty, unbelievably brash little wolf took another step towards her, head still cocked, hands still on hips.

"We don't fight like that," the boy said simply. "We like to wrestle in our wolf bodies—do you want to see?" And just like that, he phased. The children gasped, and Quil and Embry circled around, keeping close, yet far, just in case the knife came out again.

"It's true," the girl said, awed. "You can change when there's no moon?" Her eyes scanned the pack. "You can be wolves whenever you want?"

"He's so small, though," said one of the others; he had no European accent, and instead spoke in the small, hushed consonants of the American deep south. The girl looked at the bratty boy wolf appraisingly as he stood, panting, surrounded by shredded sweat pants. His fur was a rich, dappled grey, and even though he was diminutive compared to the grown wolves, _small_ was not the word that came to my mind when I looked at him.

"He is small, but he's a wolf right now, and we are not," the alpha girl said. Suddenly, she looked up at Jacob and dropped her knife in the grass. "We want to join your pack, Hunter. We want you to teach us this change."

"They cannot make you different than you are." Edward's quiet, lovely voice crept across the clearing from where he stood. He spoke as though he were repeating something, albeit patiently, to an unruly, unwilling child, and perhaps he was.

"Let him say it," said the little alpha girl, staring at Edward angrily. "Let him say the words."

"We can't change your nature," Jacob replied. He sounded sad; how strange it must be to meet someone who wanted the very nature he had fought to extinguish, in children exactly her age. With a shiver, I remembered, briefly, wanting to be a vampire, and then threw the thought away as quickly as it came. It seemed a thousand years ago. How awful for Edward to refuse me, how awful for me to ask…It was too gruesome to dwell on, so I didn't, and I noticed that my hand had once again wrapped around my middle.


	52. Chapter 52

It was too gruesome to dwell on, so I didn't, and I noticed that my hand had once again wrapped around my middle.

The alpha girl's jaw set, and I realized that this was as close as she could come to tears. Quil had already snagged her knife out of the dirt in front of her, so she stood, helpless, before the pack. It seemed for a minute that she might try to fight with her fists; the young wolf had gamboled off to hide behind his friends, playfully nipping at their hands. Instead, Jacob's look-alike came forward. "You can join us anyway," he said. He looked out at her from under his hair, glanced at Jacob, who nodded, and continued. "We could always use fighters of any kind."

The girl seemed for a minute like she might reject the offer, but then acquiesced and pulled the children behind her forward in the same tottering line they'd exited the woods in. She stood before Jacob for a moment, as if giving him another opportunity to object, and then turned to follow the oldest boy back to the gaggle of children. We watched them be awkward briefly, before the youngest ones wandered close to the little wolf, and then the rest slowly closed in on the alpha girl, the murmured questions and answers of the children barely reaching the adults.

"Wow," said Leah. "That is really not what I was expecting." We all stared at the little group, some of the children suddenly breaking in to a chase; the girl tried, but faltered and then sassed them with words. She was too tired to keep running.

"They really put the _children_ in _children of the moon_—" Quil was booed but laughed at his own joke anyway, and dodged thrown handfuls of wet grass until Embry punched his shoulder. More chasing. Cracks about who was wearing pants, who wasn't. It seemed the evening was finally winding down.

"Let's get some rest," Jacob said quietly, and then turned and spoke to Sam and Edward privately before moving back towards Leah. "You and I need to talk," he said, and even I felt the raw power of the alpha in his voice. He hadn't used the alpha command; Jacob _was _alpha. That must be what the little girl felt, I thought, listening as he continued. Leah had the grace to look bashful as he told her he'd be at her house tomorrow, broken ribs or no. She started to try and stand, then cried out; Sam and Emily caught and lifted her from either side. She was too weak to protest.

"We'll get her home," Sam said to Jacob. He and Emily's hands found each other behind Leah's back, and she chuckled low until Emily slapped her shoulder again.

"I'm not sure if my life is getting _worse_, or better," she muttered, then laughed loudly, brightly, with Sam and Emily grinning back, and had her answer immediately.

The three limped out of the clearing, Embry leading the rest of the warriors after them and pulling the young wolves away from their new playmates, who left with Edward. I wanted to ask, but then realized: Esme. Children. Tiny stars illuminated the wide expanse of grass, and Edward nodded at the pair of us before he stepped in to the shadows of the trees. The group of children lingered together before breaking apart. I took a deep breath; a momentary peace fell on our world.

"Things are going to be okay, aren't they?" I pushed myself against Jacob's warm body, wrapped myself beneath his arm, smelled his delicious skin. He watched the woods where our friends—our family, really—had disappeared, but didn't answer for a long time.

"Things are changing," he said to me, and then picked me up as if I weighed nothing, walking away from the clearing. He'd known I was tired even though I hadn't realized it yet. The pine trees rustled above us in greeting.

"Things are always changing," I whispered. I thought about my father's house, and felt a strange hesitation instead of the relief I was expecting. Part of me didn't want to go back to Charlie's; part of me wanted to curl around Jacob and sleep right there beneath the trees, in the wild woods where half of him belonged. How long could we live like this—sneaking around like teen-agers? I almost asked him, but his next question stopped that line of thought.

"_This_ won't change, will it Bella?" He looked down at me; I couldn't see his expression in the dark, but I knew the tone. I knew what his heart was asking me, thumping against my own rib cage.

"Never," I said without hesitation, and he bent to kiss me. In my heart, I knew it was true; now we had to make the world—the Volturi—agree.

"Isabella," Charlie began, "do not ever leave this house with all the damn doors open, the back yard torn to hell, and no phone call or note ever again. Ever. Again." My father was standing on the back porch, staring at Jacob and I. He put me down on my feet and I rushed over to my dad, hugging him in spite of his angry expression. When I pulled back, I realized that wouldn't be enough to appease him.

It looked like two bulldozers had gone to battle in the backyard. Jacob kicked sheepishly at one pile while I gaped at the furrows, then turned back to Charlie, who now appeared—fortunately--disgruntled and not furious or worried. I grimaced at Jake, who shrugged, and then returned to face my dad.

"Sam and Leah got in a fight," I muttered. "They were in the house but then they ran out in to the backyard—"

"The last time I saw Leah she wasn't a two ton monster truck, and the last time I saw Sam Uley there was no way in hell he would hurt that girl, or anybody." My father's mouth was set in a firm, angry line.

"It's not like that, Dad," I started to say, then lost track of myself. To my surprise, Jacob stepped forward. I was infinitely grateful Quil had made Jacob take his extra pair of shorts.

"I broke it up, Charlie, no one got hurt." The white lie slid smoothly from between his perfect teeth, and he ignored my face; I, of course, was thinking of Leah's crushed ribs and Sam's fractured arm. "I am sorry about your yard, though. I'll get the guys to come over tomorrow and we'll take care of it—well, we can't regrow your grass or anything." His crumpled brow transmitted concern, and apology, but I wondered if Charlie would notice that Jacob was talking about the pack the way Sam used to. "We'll do the best we can to have it looking nice again."

"You better," Charlie replied, looking fierce. He'd noticed. His eyes came back to me and he softened a bit; it seemed the real outcome depended on tomorrow. Without another word, he left us and went back inside.

"I'll see you upstairs," I whispered, turning to follow him, but Jacob held me back. "What is it, Jake?" I tried to read his expression, but couldn't in the dark. His long arms pulled me towards him as he stood on the ground, my feet on the top stair; we were face to face, and before I could stop myself I sank in to his heat, running my hands over his bare skin. My mouth found his and I felt his hands pull me away, just slightly, but I kept reaching.

"Bells, I really need—"

"We can't!" I choked out, catching his hair between my fingers, my lips grazing his jawline and wandering north again just to find him grinning at me. His smile was so bright I could see it even in the shadow of the porch.

"To run," he said, low, and pulled me close again. "I really need to go for a run." The heat of his breath rushed out across my chest as he chuckled, and I smiled back and kissed his forehead.

"Okay," I said, and sighed. "I'll be upstairs."

"I love you," he whispered, backing slowly away, shedding his clothes as I watched.

"I love you," I whispered back, and then began the slow climb inside when he'd reached the trees.


	53. Chapter 53

AN: Hey guys and dolls. Its been a hellish time, I'll be honest, but a lot of fun to get back to writing. The story is starting its final arc (we've ended the middle and begun the end, if you see what I mean) and I really, truly, deeply appreciate the readers that have been so supportive and made this so rewarding since the beginning. I try to remind myself that many enthusiastic readers are shy about reviews, but to those of you who do: you're so, so awesome. On a final note, I'm really behind in my reading--I try hard to make sure I keep up with the reviewers stories at the very least--and I don't know when I'm going to catch up again. Please don't ever take it as a comment on your talent and keep writing. This semester has to end sometime.

*****

_"I love you," I whispered back, and then began the slow climb inside when he'd reached the trees._

_How to do it, how to do it, how to do it, how to do it_; the question ticked back and forth across all of our faces. The new table smelled strongly of pine and fresh varnish, and the light tapping of nervous fingertips drummed and echoed around the room. Quil and Embry stared down at the empty surface, for once no laughter between them; Sam and Leah took opposite ends of the table but there was no remaining tension between them lingering in the air—well, not related to anything about themselves. Occasionally their eyes would drift towards one another, but without any brilliant ideas flashing behind them, they never spoke. Edward sighed deeply and pinched the bridge of his nose, and Leah snapped at him.

"When you sigh this close to me, I have to smell your stinky cotton candy breath. Can you cut it out?"

Edward looked hurt for a moment before he snapped back. "I wasn't aware this was a kindergarden classroom. I shall keep my grown-up sighing to a minimum from here on so it doesn't frighten any children." They glared at each other. No one laughed. None of us felt better than either of them; their bickering was the byproduct of too many days passing without a decent plan.

"Go over it again." Leah said it quietly; it was her way of apologizing to him.

"You already know everything I'm going to say," he returned her tone, looking hopeless.

"Do it anyway," she urged, and with another heavy sigh—unmarred by any cutting comments—Edward agreed.

"Their headquarters have several ways in; firstly, through the front (and presumably back) entrances, which are guarded by a force of humans, and a second of vampires—although the vampires are unconfirmed, I am sure they are close by. These entrances and exits look like hotel lobbies. There is a tower area where the elder members of the guard stage their court; where the lower ranking members are at any given time probably depends on their mission status and about that, we know nothing."

"Primary targets," muttered Leah. Edward rolled his eyes and continued.

"First: their tracker." His brow furrowed. "Carlisle wasn't introduced, but he heard him referred to once; not by name, unfortunately." He sighed. "After that, it depends on what you think may be necessary, although it would be safe to say, I believe, that Caius is the next—"

"Caius is _my_ primary target," growled Jacob, and a palpable shiver ran over my skin. He noticed and took my hand, squeezed it gently, and then looked back at Edward, who continued naming the guard and debating with Leah over which would be most likely to pursue the pack, should they attack.

And they would attack; how or when, we did not know. But soon. Two and a half days had passed since the night in the clearing, and Jacob was still alpha. Sam had taken a deep breath, shaken his head, and told him no in a firm, clear voice when Jake asked him to step back in to position; Leah had similarly declined, and then snapped that if _he_ had the right to refuse, once upon a time, he couldn't very well back out now when they needed him. I believe the phrase 'once bitten, twice shy' was used, because I heard Quil singing in a high pitched, hair-metal voice every time he was near Jacob for the next two days.

The passing time had been filled with stories, weaving in and out of one another, more puzzle pieces falling languidly in to place. Edward's startled gasp during Jacob's tale about meeting his imprint had been the most revealing; watching Jacob's memories, Edward recognized Caius from Carlisle's visit to Italy. The menacing force that had killed Jacob's imprint was none other than a Volturi squad sent specifically to track and kill werewolves, whom they had driven to near extinction in Europe. Caius, apparently, held a bit of a vendetta against them, having almost been killed by one once.

And that last detail, of course, lead to another revelation: the werewolves, or children of the moon, were much stronger than the La Push wolves—but only for three days a month. _"It's more like a virus," _Jake had told me, and apparently this was true; Carlisle and Edward hypothesized that it was similar to the same condition that held the vampires in an immortal, icy grasp, transformation by venom. The werewolves aged, and they had no supernatural powers until they were older, as the La Push wolves did even in youth, with their heightened sense of smell and hearing. After puberty the werewolf in the newcomers became more pronounced. Their bight—their own venom--was fatal to vampires, even in human form. They were not able to regenerate. They were not connected telepathically in wolf form. They were merciless, relentless monsters without much semblence to human life; in fact, they were more like vampires than the La Push wolves.

Jacob hadn't wanted to share his memories of his imprint with Edward for obvious reasons, but he'd eventually agreed to sit with the young alpha and talk to her about her wolves. She was desperate to find a way to transform at will, and after she left the room, their talk unsatisfying for all parties, Edward looked gravely after her. Leah wandered away, and I quietly stood and resettled behind Jacob, taking the opportunity to brush his long, tangled hair.

"She watched as her mother was killed by vampires." Edward looked back at Jacob. "She's been infected since birth, and has never known any kind of normal human life. Her pack fled the vampire massacres in Europe when she was small, and she watched the adults get picked off, one by one, until there were none left. She's been living on and around the Appalachian Trail for three years, and the children with her are all infected as well. Three of them were the children of her pack mates, one is a baby they found on the Trail."

"Is it infected too?"

"Yes," Edward said, frowning. "Though not deliberately. It startled one of the other young ones when they were all sleeping, and was bitten." His expression was fearful. "It was an accident."

"So what you're saying is they're dangerous?"

"If it weren't obvious before, yes." Edward peered in to Jacob's eyes. "They're not like your people, Jacob. They're dangerous even in human form, the way any group of people with nothing to lose tends to be." He didn't need to mention the little girl's knife again.

"Will their venom hurt us?" Jacob's forehead was smooth, his hands still; he wasn't going to abandon the small werewolves simply because they were dangerous. Young wolves in the La Push pack were known to be dangerous as well, after all. I rested my forehead against his supple, strong back, wrapping my arms around his waist. Edward sighed.

"I don't know, but as vampire venom is toxic to the wolves, I would suppose so. There's no way to be sure without courting tragedy." He once again leaned forward, staring bluntly up at Jacob's face. "I don't believe I was clear—they don't always choose their alphas when they're wolves, Jacob." He waited for Jacob to understand, grew impatient, and spoke again. "They attack each other in human form. They live to dominate and divide." His gold eyes ticked back and forth between Jake's black ones. "They are not bound by family or honor—perhaps once, long ago. Now they are all merely refugees, with no law between them."

"People thought that way about us, once." Jake wasn't talking about the wolves; he was using a larger us. Edward surrendered, sighing and rolling his eyes. He turned his back and watched the youngsters frolic and wrestle in the wide lot behind Emily's restaurant. Jacob and Leah had been spending more and more time together; her vocal political battles with Edward clued me in immediately to the source of his sense of defeat when confronted with Jacob's simple words, clearly resonant of hers.

"I wish Leah would live more presently," he murmured, and then grew embarrassed at the quiet revelation. "She lives so much in books she's starting to sound like one."

"No wonder you've got such a crush on her," Jacob prodded. "You've always sounded like some frilly, eighteenth century novel—"

"I do not have a _crush_ on anyone," Edward said, and arched one delicate eyebrow. Jake laughed out loud, and it flattened on Edwards smooth, faintly glimmering brow, his mouth pinched to keep from laughing too.

"Why not, Edward?" This came from me, and both men were still, and suddenly quiet. I knew I was walking a very taunt, invisible tightrope, but I trusted they both knew how I loved them, and hoped I was right to.

"She fascinates me, I will not lie," he said slowly, and then turned to watch the children again. "You must understand, to hear her mind…" He grew thoughtful. "There are so many layers to it, it goes so deep, so much of it blatantly contradicting and filled with wild despair and hope…" Edward suddenly turned and looked at us. "I suppose it goes without saying, but the only thing more intriguing than her mind is one I could not hear at all." He smiled sadly at us, tipped his head, and was gone.

"Poor guy," Jacob said, and I brushed one tear away, which he kindly ignored, before finishing his braid and crawling beneath his arm to curl in his lap. We watched the kids until everyone arrived, and then, of course, we sat at the table. The acrid scent of the lacquer tickled my nose. The drone of Leah and Edward, and then Quil, then Sam, even Jacob…none of it sparked any new ideas.

_How to do it, how to do it, how to do it, how to do it…_


	54. Chapter 54

_How to do it, how to do it, how to do it…_

The little girl came to me when we'd finally taken a break. The starlight was scattered now, less noticeable under the half moon; her skin was so smooth and her gait so silent she looked like a fairy, a light glow coming off of her cheeks. It made me think of Edward's hypothesis, and to be honest, she did look more vampire than wolf. She was clean and well clothed. Esme and Rosalie had taken her under their wing, and although she was resistant to anything resembling genuine affection, her innate leeriness of vampires never appeared. I thought of Jasper, and realized how crucial he would have been in Alice's mission.

_Alice._ I thought her name and the girl said it at the same time.

"Alice gave me a letter for you." She lingered in the doorway. I turned my back towards her and rumbled through a stack of silverware, polishing; not to be rude, but I knew that the simple gesture would draw her in. "She told me what it says."

"Oh?" I pretended to be busy. "How did Alice look to you?"

"At first she looked like all of them look," the girl said in her solid, clear voice. The weakness from the first night was gone after a few nights rest and some decent food. "But then, I saw her eyes. And she said she knew what we needed to do—that she'd seen us in the woods, knew just where to find us, and that there was somewhere we could go."

"She meant here?"

"She did," the girl said. She was leaning on the doorframe, casually, but every few seconds she would look behind her. Always vigilant. "But she also said if we came here, we'd meet The Hunter."

I stopped what I was doing and looked at her. "You'd heard of Jacob before?"

"Not Jacob. The Hunter." She stared back at me, unwavering. "My mother sought him before she died." One quick glance over her shoulder, and she continued. "The people spoke of a wolf who didn't die when they shot him, or when they bit him. They said he grew new arms and legs when they ripped them off, and ate vampires like candy." She gazed at me, hypnotized by the legends. "They said he could change as he liked, with no help from the moon."

"You know only some of that is true," I said, frowning. My farce lay abandoned on the shelf, and I faced the girl. "And of the things that are true, all of his people are that way. They're a different kind of wolves."

"Not so different," said the little girl. "Not like the vampires are different." She continued to gaze at me.

"What do you mean?" I squared my shoulders, but she shrugged.

"The Hunter was alpha of a pack far away from here, too." Her abrupt change of subject was obvious, but I let it go; there was no way to drag things out of this one that she didn't want to discuss. She wasn't like the La Push children, although I'd seen her temporarily at ease, laughing and running. Her age gave way to nature that had been cultivated by her hard life, and here she was, sounding more like a woman than a girl. "The vampires call him by that name, and our people call him by that name. Jacob is just the name Alice told me. Jacob Black."

"Yes, that's his real name." I nodded, preparing to return to the subject of the letter when she startled me.

"No," she said, firm. "That's only his human name." She gazed at me, unflinching. "The wolf name is real." Without another word, her hand appeared, letter balanced on her flat, outstretched palm. I put my hand over hers.

"He chose his name, and it's Jacob Black." I said quietly. "You can choose yours too." She withdrew her hand quickly, but let me grasp the letter.

"I have only one name," she said, backing away. "But no humans can pronounce it." And then she was off, racing in to the trees.

_Dear Bella,_ the letter began. _There are so many things I want to tell you, and so many things I can't. Destroy this letter as soon as you finish reading it—no one can know what it says, besides the alpha girl. They'll fight you enough as it is._

_You have to go to Italy. You have to get as many of the pack there as you can, and bring the small ones I sent—they're going with you in to the Tower. First. Not the wolves, no one else. Don't tell them what you're going to do, because they'll try and stop you. Edward and Jacob can follow you in once you go, and the rest are already waiting._

_Go a half hour before moon rise on the first day of the full moon. The small ones will protect you, but you must run when it's time. Get out. Don't wait for Jacob, or Edward. _

_One last thing—she doesn't do it to hurt you, Bella. She does it to save their lives._

I puzzled over that, my finger stroking Alice's hurried signature, the word _love_ growing blurry from the friction. Hot tears fell from my face on to the paper, and to distract myself more than anything I looked for a match and a place to burn it. Quickly…quickly…it was done.

How long did we have until the full moon? I groped for a calendar in the dark pantry, still furiously wiping my face, hoping Jacob hadn't smelled the smoke. How could I keep this from him? After everything we shared, all the wretchedness we'd come through, how could I lie?

My hands were shaking. I gripped the back of a chair to steady myself and closed my eyes, giving up on the calendar for a minute. _This must be the only way,_ I thought to myself. _This must be the only way we can be free._

When I noticed my hand was once again firmly wrapped around my middle, I made up my mind. The group was listlessly regathering in the wide, barren room when I walked in and spoke loudly, my voice ringing through their nervous whispers like a bell.

"Alice is in Italy," I said. "We have to go there. Now."


	55. Chapter 55

"No." Jacob's voice was becoming slowly frantic; Edward stared at me, frozen and terrified. Leah's sharp voice startled them both back in to action.

"Why? Because she's a woman?" She slapped Jake's back for effect and almost leaned on Edward's shoulder, falling back at the last second when his smell became too strong. He awkwardly swept away to stare at the black night out of the open doorway, but Jacob glared at Leah with a simmering fury.

"Of course not." The bottom note in his voice barely registered, it was so deep. "She's _human_."

"So are we. Sort of." Leah shrugged. Emily, the last one to appear in the room after the dinner rush ended, spoke quietly from beside her husband's wide body.

"Would you let me go, if I wanted to?"

"No," Sam and Jacob both replied bluntly, and Leah rolled her eyes and laughed again in a mirthless way.

"Then I'd buy my own ticket and meet you there," Emily said firmly, meeting my eyes across the table and nodding. "And if Bella wants to do the same, she can." It was a warning shot. I hoped Emily wouldn't be angry when she found out what defending my wishes really meant; I hoped if she was I would be alive to apologize for misleading her.

"It's beyond foolish—" Edward's rushed hiss was covered by the barreling growls coming out of Jacob, and Leah laughed her brutal, bitter laugh one final time and moved to stand beside me. As she crossed her arms the smile slid off of her face, and I could tell the fight was about to be over.

"She isn't going to go in to the damn tower, you guys. She's going to go where her heart is going"—here, she pointed at Jake, who bit his lip—"and she's going to be safe, _and_ she's going to watch the little ones, like the freaky girl said." Leah looked at me, and I realized she knew something was up. She was supporting my presence because she saw, unlike the men, that something I couldn't say was drawing me to Italy. Our success might depend on it. _Leah is very strategic._ "I'll be watching her," Leah murmured, her black eyes locking on mine. "Nothing will happen to her." _She understands war. _I was afraid of her. If Leah caught me trying to leave and endanger my life, would she let me go? Jacob and Edwards' appraisal of her rational approach to battle aside, I knew Leah loved me now. She was firing her own warning shot, just for me, rattling through my mind.

No one spoke until the tiny alpha's voice piped up, clear and startling. "Thank you, Leah. I feel better knowing Alice's good friend will be there to take care of me and the pups." She didn't meet anyone's eyes. It sounded vaguely as though she was reciting something, but no one else seemed to know what to say, so she continued. "We must leave immediately."

"You're not going, and you're not fighting," growled Jacob.

"Yes, I am," the small alpha said, and the lilting, uninterested tone dropped from her voice. "You need us. You don't have enough fighters to take out the whole guard—we'll be five more on your side." Her blank expression never changed, but her affect became increasingly urgent. "And we're bigger than you."

"No you're not," Jacob said, staring at her.

"We have venom." She met his expression without wincing. He hadn't used an alpha command on her since the first night she'd appeared, but she couldn't have forgotten it's effect; her need to go with the pack to Italy was so great that she was clearly undaunted by the constant undercurrent of dominance Jacob exuded. "We can kill them much more easily than you can."

"And _be_ killed much more easily." Jacob respected the child, but unlike the rest of us, he had seen the children of the moon fight vampires before. Sam, Leah, and the grown warriors did not enter the fray; they all seemed inclined to let the small, strange pack come along, almost as an experiment. Edward, on the other hand, pinched the bridge of his nose and exhaled loudly. He'd become attached to the young girl and did not want her fighting, but he remained silent during tense exchange between alphas. I felt I had to interject; if the small pack didn't come to Italy, our whole chance at defeating the Volturi might vanish in to thin air. _Never bet against Alice_, I told myself.

"Let her go, Jacob," I said quietly. "It's not going to hurt anything—if you guys don't need them to help, then they won't fight. It'll be fine."

"It won't be _fine_," Edward hissed again, moving so quickly on his feet he blurred slightly, his white hands fluttering. "They'll be changed—they can't be anywhere near you, Bella, or any other human beings while they're changed—"

"We can," the girl interrupted. She stared at Edward, and he gritted his teeth. She was sending him thoughts directly, her eyes unblinking and her pale hands white knuckled in her lap.

"I don't _care_ that you've always been this way, that you think you've mastered it, you've never been in a city with that many people before—"

"But we have to learn, don't we?" She now let the urgency show completely, vulnerable for the first and only time. One diamond shaped tear formed in the corner of her pale, blue eye. "To stay here, to be among these people…I cannot stay here and have children and a life if I don't learn how to be with humans." The tear teetered on the edge of her pale lashes, then disappeared down her cheek as if it had never existed, traceless. She continued to stare at the men and women around her, her hands finally relaxed and flat on the table as she waited.

These words changed everything in the room; a quiet swept across the pack, and Edward hung his head. It made a bizarre sort of sense, in a way. No one had confronted her about the knife, and Edward had never spoken of any confrontation between them about the dangerous nature of the children of the moon. But she had known that this future would come, and she'd spoken the truth. If the new children did not learn to become like the La Push wolves, they could not live among their people.

Jacob sat silently. It was the closest the girl and I, Alice's conspirators, would get to an affirmation, and we knew it. Our eyes met across the table, and I nodded slightly, loosely; Leah saw, her sharp eyes catching mine, but everyone else was already saying goodnight and she let it slide and followed them out. The girl ran from the room, Edward moving swiftly behind her after a brief exchange with Jake, and the wolf pack slowly dispersed until only he and I were left.

"I don't want you to go," he whispered. We were back in the room where we'd last fought. The sounds of the restaurant closing around us—banging chairs, the tinkle of silverware and laughter—dimmed and then ceased altogether. His hands were once again flat on the table, tension palpable between us, but now I knew there was no danger. I moved towards him and sat in his lap, pushing my face against his warm skin. His arms wrapped around me.

"I love you," I said. I hoped later, when the future had sorted itself, he could understand that was my motive, always. I loved him. If Alice saw this as the way, I would follow her orders to the letter.

"I love you," he whispered back, and we held each other that way for a long time before making our way out of the empty building, towards a restless, dreamless sleep, and our uncertain departure tomorrow.


	56. Chapter 56

Seattle's grey skies mocked us as soon as the plane lifted from the ground. The wolves had never been on a plane before, and found themselves in a situation where their supernatural bulk wouldn't save them; they couldn't fist-fight gravity. Jacob's eyes were wide, the white showing completely around the abyss in the center, and he nearly broke my hand before I was able to make him relax a little. Even Leah, pale and sweating, didn't react well to the sudden storm.

"This is unusual for the area," Edward mumbled. His diamond studded skin looked strange and out of place against the stained upholstery of the seat. He'd bought all of us tickets, and sat with us in coach when Leah's pride interfered with allowing him to settle us all in first class. They were next to each other; it was supposed to have been an accident, and Leah certainly made a good show of looking longingly after her brother in a row further back, but I saw their hands graze as the turbulence made the plane buck. Edward was almost too nervous to notice. Almost. It certainly wasn't the shaking plane that had him pulling at his collar.

No one was as afraid as the little children of the moon, however. And unknown to myself, or her, a lie became true when I spent the majority of the early flight easing the tears and fears of the little alpha's tiny pack as we left the stormy west coast. None of them had ridden in a car, let alone an airplane.

The tiny alpha girl sat next to me, the smallest boy curled in her lap. I had another boy in mine while I held her hand, and the two middle boys burrowed in to Jacob's wide chest. She took deep, deliberate breaths, never crying out, and once I heard her growl. When the other small children were finally asleep as we sailed peacefully over Kansas, Jacob leaned across me slightly and looked at her.

"Tell me your name," he said. It wasn't the alpha command, but the power in him rushed across me like a hot wind. Fire and ice, I thought; the little girl stared back at him, almost as white as Edward and just as haughty.

"Why?"

"You are here because you said you wanted to settle with my people." Jake's broad brow was flat, his words solid, not scolding. It occurred to me that this was the first time Jake had acknowledged his status as head of the Quileute. "You can't expect to go in to battle with us as a stranger."

He was testing her. Maybe he saw as much as Leah; maybe he let us come because he knew there were things I couldn't tell him—things that would save his tribe. How would it feel, to have to balance the person you loved against the overwhelming responsibility of your birthright? I couldn't know, and I shuddered. He noticed, but instead of letting me peer in to his dark eyes, he turned them on the girl again.

"I'll tell you my name in battle," the girl said. Her brow furrowed. She was afraid he would command her.

"You'll tell me now," he said, his voice lowering an octave.

Her lip trembled. "I can't say it now." Her pale blue eyes darted towards me, and I suddenly realized she was ashamed. Her humanity hurt her, the way Jake's wolf side wounded him. "I can't say it while I'm human."

"You're human almost all of the time—"

"It's not who I am," she blurted out, then sat back abruptly, betraying her own falsehoods.

"If you can't be human, you can't fight," he sternly replied. I realized that all of the pack members sitting nearby were awake and listening to us, and almost instantly afterward I realized the little boy in my arms was awake also, quiet but alert.

"Humans are weak," snarled the girl. She clutched the child in her arms against her chest and his head wobbled on his thin neck. He stared out at me from the shield of her arms.

"Humans built this plane. They made the clothes you're wearing, and the food you've been happy to eat for the past week." Jacob was undaunted. "If you grow up and marry a human man, your children can be a part of the world. Don't you want that?"

"I don't know," the girl shot back. So fierce. "Humans become vampires. Even worse—they become prey for them."

"I want to be human," whispered the little boy in my lap. He reached out and touched her cheek.

"Me too," mumbled the sleepy boy she held. He wrapped a skinny arm around her neck and closed his eyes again, utterly content, holding back the ice storm that was his first alpha.

She ignored Jake and I, refusing to hold my hand again; I heard her sigh loudly when Leah joined in the conversation.

"Sarah," she said. Edward looked at her sharply, but Leah was leaning across the aisle, her thin hand splayed on Jacob's massive shoulder. "Call her Sarah."

Jacob looked at me, and I nodded. He pulled the sleeping children tighter against his chest and tucked his head down, and eventually his snores joined the rest of the packs, a gentle thunder echoing back and forth across the cabin. The rest of the passengers were mercifully exhausted as well, apparently. Within twenty minutes, none stayed awake but me.

Was it worth it?

What if Alice was wrong—what if everything was wrong? What if I'd stayed away from Forks, kept my quiet, dim life in the desert…what if I was the catalyst for everything that had happened? Victoria would have killed me in Phoenix. Nothing else would have followed but a sad, poorly attended funeral.

_Don't be ridiculous Bella_, I swore at myself. _You're not the center of everything._

_But I am_, I protested. I am the Hunter's mate, the vampire's love, and human. The apex of three worlds…and a damn fool. _If I'd only stayed away_…

Then Jacob would have kept killing vampires until the Volturi killed him, I scolded myself.. The Cullens would never have helped the pack, and eventually there would be no Quileutes. There would be no haven for the refugees the Volturi left in their wake, there would be no chance at peace between any vampires and any wolves.

_I'm not the apex of all of that,_ I thought to myself, and then wondered. What if I was? What if that was the real future Alice saw?

Alice didn't really care about the La Push wolves, even though she certainly didn't hate them; she had no great love for the children of the moon either. She was a modernist, a capitalist, and a vampire—her greatest loves were shoes and Jasper. And the rest of her family, I thought, and once upon a time, that included me. Maybe it still does…but what if…would Alice sacrifice me if it meant peace for the other two worlds—for her world? What if it wasn't really _she_, but _I…she does it to save their lives_…

To save their lives?….Edward. _Please don't let him hurt himself doing some ridiculously noble, unnecessary thing…_

Was Alice sending me in to see the Voluri with five children who were just as capable of killing me as the vampires as some kind of _sacrifice_?

I spun in my seat, suddenly remembering that there was at least one other passenger that never slept, never dreamed, never thought twice about doing ridiculously noble, unnecessary things.

Leah was curled against him, her long brown limbs slightly entwined with his, gold over silver. Her cut-off jeans were so short I could see the solid white scar where he'd sucked the venom out of her thigh, once upon a time, far, far away. He sat perfectly still, trying not to wake her, his eyes locked on her gently moving chest, so entranced by her breath that he didn't notice me staring.

It was the first time Edward hadn't noticed me. Ever. It didn't feel the way I thought it would.

It reassured me, just as much as the sight of Jacob with small children cradled against him did—one day, Jake would be a father. If I got to be a part of it…if I lived, so much the better; if I died making sure he lived—that Edward lived, with Leah, that the pack lived, with these strange children marrying their own and creating a whole new kind of wolf—it was alright.

I was doing the right thing. No matter Alice's version of the future, no matter her priorities, however veiled, I knew she loved me. She just might be making as big a sacrifice as I was. _Love is like that,_ I remembered, and renegotiated the meaning behind the maxim; shamelessly asking more than we think we can give, brutally shattering our illusion of control. _Love is unkind that way._

My eyes closed and I slept dreamlessly until I awoke in Rome.


	57. Chapter 57

The world was once again turning faster than I was prepared for it too—I felt the earth shifting beneath me, my feet moving slowly, so slowly, compared to time. I was constantly distracted, having slept-walk through every station, each airport, each language, each tense distraction blurring together in an elongated moment, wicked and dull at the same time. The young alpha noticed, but didn't come closer; Leah stalked me, watched me for false smiles, for faltering moments, and then drew Jacob's concerned attention elsewhere. She didn't know what to do. She knew I didn't either. I had six hours before moon rise in Volterra.

We spoke less and less, hushed whispers below my hearing range scurrying back and forth across train and airplane aisles; once, when he got lost, Quil threw his head back and howled openly among the restless crowd moving around him. We laughed too hard at jokes that were modestly funny, at best. We avoided each others' eyes, Jacob's staying vigilant, roaming across our heads and counting, counting, always counting. His lips moved soundlessly, and I imagined him singing; _one little two little three little Indians_…I was the only human present in the cloud of supernatural bodies around me, pressing close, then disappearing, always moving a little faster than I could, always slowing down when they saw the children and I lagging behind, pushing, pushing, pushing towards the future.

Italy swept away in front of my eyes; the kind of views I'd dreamed of as a child barely registered in my vision and I chewed on the insides of my mouth, drawing blood. Volterra finally loomed ahead of us, spare and tall against the blue sky. If I hadn't grown used to the suction I felt in my chest, I would have thought I was hallucinating.

"Dammit!" Embry swerved and dodged a frightened old woman that had appeared out of nowhere on the narrow street ascending towards the city. The van we'd rented was cumbersome and difficult to maneuver on the thin streets. It seemed like an endless horizon of turrets and vivid stonework wound directly out of the ground to form the city, naturally formed and centuries old. It was fitting as a place for vampire settlement, if awkwardly bright.

"Do they ever go outside? Don't the people that live here know about them?" Leah cocked her head and took in the sunlight, her eyes sparkling as the rays met them. Edward shook his head.

"There have always been rumors, legends, and superstitions, which are—in this case—absolutely true." He scanned the towers that began to engulf us as we crested the hill. "I believe that humans are intrigued by our kind. They may continue to live here under the veil of protection modern science has provided them, or they may not care that the price is occasional disappearances." He looked back briefly at the rest of us and spared me a small smile. "I have never understood their motives."

I didn't have anything to say about why the people here managed to live with so many vampires in their midst for so long. It was puzzling for me to think of it; the Cullens seemed like a different kind of animal entirely from Laurent, or Victoria. It made sense that Carlisle had had to begin his family in The New World.

"Where are we going?" Quil never completely recovered from getting lost in the train station. Purple bruises shaded the skin below his eyes, and he ran a hand nervously through his clipped hair.

"Edward knows where they are," Jacob replied. "We're going to go as close as we can, regroup, settle the kids, and see if we can find Alice." Jake's handsome face looked slightly more haggard than it had lately, but he was noticeably less fatigued than the other wolves; I guessed that his years running equipped him for the kind of grueling traveling we were currently enduring. Seth had a lazy arm draped across his sister's shoulder, his eyes closed. Jared stared nervously but had the kind of slow movements that told me he hadn't slept enough; Collin and Brady, included for the first time, blinked languidly and sat with their mouths hanging open. None but Jake looked anywhere near able to fight, if you excluded Edward.

His wan smile towards me was the only change in his expression from constant and total concentration. He was listening for his sister. Embry swore again and Quil apologized, fumbling with the piece of paper he held, just as Edward's head snapped to the right. "Stop the van," he said, urgent. His hands were splayed against the window. He was trapped by the sunlight; the sun was beginning to edge away over the tops of the buildings, but he couldn't walk outside yet without being noticed. Embry slammed on the brakes and several horns honked and squealed behind us. "There—" Edward was pointing, but we all looked left as the opposite door opened and slammed.

The youngest alpha ran across the square towards where Edward directed us. She pushed headlong through the other people, bouncing backwards because she weighed so little, then barreling through. More horns honking. More doors slamming as the pack chased after her.

"Where's she going?" Leah hadn't moved. She watched Edward.

"They're over there—she smelled them." He looked back at Leah. "She's just begun to gain some of the powers she'll have as an adult. Her childhood is fading."

"Smelled who?" Leah's thin nostrils shivered and took in the air. The other small boys looked at Edward, waiting for his answer.

"The children of the moon," Edward said. His voice was flat. "The square is full of them."

"What?" Leah leaned across him, staring out at the crowd.

It's shape had changed; before, it had looked like any other busy pedestrian packed street in Europe, the crowd moving fluidly by, couples and families and striding businessmen filling every foot of space. I saw Quil and Jared halt behind Jacob's broad back, facing towards the crowd, as the young girl walked towards them. She looked as though she were alone for a moment, until I noticed that shape, the growing V that formed behind her. The entire square was facing Jacob, with her at the apex.

Edward's strangely flat voice continued, a quiet buzzing that entered my ear, my subconscious. "They were calling Jacob's wolf name, so many of them, with their minds." A crease formed between his eyebrows. "It was _deafening_."

"Holy shit," Leah muttered. She fumbled with the latch on the door before she realized that he wasn't moving. "Aren't you coming?" Her eyes searched his face.

"No," Edward said, the small crease still there. "Not enough of them have met vampires like me. It would be an unfortunate way to begin introductions between your people and theirs." He stared out at them, and I followed his eyes. Jacob loomed above the crowd, so we could see their location easily, but he was surrounded. I couldn't see if his mouth was moving.

"I'll wait," Leah said, and began to resettle, but Edward put his hand over hers and pulled the handle. Fresh air poured in to the van with the vicious wind.

"No," he said quietly, and she left. We both followed her back as she disappeared in to the crowd. The four young boys began to whisper to each other. All the rest of the pack had left the van. It was just Edward and I.

He never looked at me, instead staring out after Leah. "Alice sent you a letter," he murmured. I gasped, but he continued and ignored me. "The young girl cannot read, and Alice did not let her look at it, knowing I would be potentially be able to see it." The fragile tenor of his voice told me he was past grief and terror. "As a consequence, I can only guess at its contents. But Bella," his eyes closed, "I am watching you. Leah is suspicious of your motives for being here as well, and Jacob has always been able to read you like a book." His eyes still shut, his voice dropped to a whisper. "We all know something is not right. Do not attempt anything that will compromise your safety."

Of course Edward would be able to read the young girl's mind—why hadn't I thought of that sooner? Instead, I steadied my voice and looked back out over the crowd around my beautiful lover, his black hair loose and whipping in the wind. More dark heads bobbed around him, but they could have been anyone; the pack had disappeared inside of the swarm that was waiting for Jake. As I watched, I recognized the tiny alpha as she walked towards the car, separating slowly from the crowd. Her eyes met mine.

"I don't know what you're talking about, Edward," I said. My voice was flat. Deceptive. "I'm just here to take care of the kids." The little alpha opened the door and sat down in the front seat with a heavy exhale.

"Jake wants to introduce you, Edward," she spoke in her clear voice.

"No, he doesn't," Edward said. His eyes were now open and locked on mine, but I stared past him. Leah was walking towards us. She waved an arm, beckoning.

"But she does, Edward," I said evenly, and pointed. When he turned his head, Leah waved her arm more furiously, and he sighed before turning back to me.

"Remember what I said," he whispered. "I won't let you out of my sight."

"You shouldn't worry," I lied. "Go." He did, swiftly, and was swallowed by the crowd immediately. Strange noises reached my ears as the girl turned and looked back at me. All of the children stared with open eyes into my face.

"It's time," she said.


	58. Chapter 58

The sun was sliding further behind the tall buildings; it wouldn't set for another two hours, I guessed, but we were obscured in the deep shade created by the towering structures all around us. Not that it would have hidden us from the keen eyes of the wolves, or of Edward, for that matter, but it did give the young alpha a chance to show off her swiftly surfacing abilities. Even so, without Alice's directions, we never would have found the place.

"Here," she'd said, and handed me another envelope flat on her palm, just the way she'd handed me the first one. We'd crept away from the car, gently closing the single door and racing away down an alley. We kept moving quickly, quickly, quickly, away from the growing roar behind us, knowing that any of the pack could catch us in seconds because of our combined clumsy humanity. When we were far enough away, she turned to me with the new envelope.

I saw how Alice had tricked Edward. He wouldn't have been able to distinguish the memories from one another without knowing the contents of the letters. _Alice,_ I thought. _Alice, what have you done_…But there was no answer. Just clipped sentences written in her whispery hand, ending with an unfamiliar address. There was no explanation of what we were to do once we entered the building, and I hoped that meant it would be obvious. We dashed off in to the dark, four white blonde heads bobbing like ghosts through the increasing dark around me.

"They're close," she growled, one white hand holding a small boy back, who crouched low. Her nose wrinkled the way Jacob's did, cutting and dividing the scents in the air into quantifiable categories, naming what I could not see or know. Her young pack fell in line behind the boy she held, descending in size. It hit me how predatory they looked, suddenly—these were not normal children. Their eyes glimmered unblinkingly in the waning light, all muscles tensed and at the ready. It wasn't that they were wolves, yet; they did not have the sleek, terrifying praxis of the grown La Push pack, for example. They looked like soldiers. Child soldiers.

"This is the address," I confirmed, nodding towards the wide building in front of us. One structure that took up the entire city block, as far as we could see, windowless and sleekly modern in spite of the ancient foundation. Black towers loomed above us, the jagged horizon continuing behind them out of sight, the hum from the electricity illuminating its broad face louder than even the wind. We held hands and moved forward, and I felt myself moving to the front protectively. As if I could save us.

The receptionist was stunning, but something desperate clung to her like a rank perfume—the fake beauty mark, the sweep of her eyeliner, her carefully understated outfit and garish shoe dangling from her swinging foot. She rudely reminded me of some kind of Barbie version of my old highschool friend Jessica. The young alpha stood behind me and growled, deep and low, and the woman looked up and smiled pleasantly. I wondered why I'd reacted to her so poorly, and pushed the thoughts from my mind.

"Hello." She spoke English with a delicate accent, almost unnoticeable. "Did you say something?" The children were silent, huddling behind me.

"No," I said, and faked a smile back at her. With my shabby clothing and unwashed body, I knew I resembled a vagrant, but I walked forward in what I hoped was a confident way. "I'm here to see Alice."

The woman's smile disappeared, and her hand quickly moved to a button on the top of the desk and hovered over it. A cloud briefly passed over her eyes. "Are you sure?" She spoke without moving her mouth; there must be cameras trained on us. Her eyes went back over the children behind me, and before I could answer, her mouth firmed and she pressed down. "You shouldn't have come here," she said, just as suddenly sounding like a chastising matron lecturing the young and uninitiated. "And you definitely shouldn't have brought _them_."

"She already stinks like them," said the young girl, and the woman laughed lightly just as the elevator door behind her opened. I hadn't previously noticed that for the size of the room, it was strange there was only one exit and one entrance. White marble. The woman's white throat as she laughed. The tinkling echo crashing back and forth from stone wall to stone wall as someone moved towards us. I still had that fake smile on my face when the vampire appeared behind the receptionist, who looked docilely back at her.

"Come with me," the woman said, and I found I wanted to follow her, though I didn't know why; her liquid violet eyes hypnotized me from her shining face. The receptionist turned herself towards the beautiful vampire as if she were basking in the light of the summer sun. The vampire never bothered to look at her, and turned her back on all of us, her pace becoming faster as she approached the elevator. I found I was frozen.

_Fear._ I was going to die.

The tiny white hand wrapped around mine and tugged. Gently. "It's time to go," she said again. I remembered watching Jacob in the crowd, his black hair like a furious halo. Edward and Leah's arms reaching towards one another, never quite touching, as the crowd enveloped them. My feet began to shuffle towards the elevator where the vampire waited, smirking; the sound of my worn shoes on the smooth floor was deafening to me.

I hadn't realized there were more of them waiting inside, but it made sense; the children formed a tight circle around me, and the three vampires in the elevator laughed uproariously, as if we'd told them a brilliant joke. One of them was almost as small as the young alpha, whose face was twisted in a ferocious scowl. The two blonde girls stared at each other eagerly. In real life—in the human world, where there were no vampires of werewolves or humans who loved them—they could have been sisters. None of us spoke. The elevator reached its floor and the vampires, smiling unctuously, moved past us at human speed until the young looking one had to leave her stance opposite the small wolf; she stood perfectly still, smiling sweetly, then snapped her jaws inches from the girl's neck before flying out the door at her natural speed. The tiny alpha exhaled furiously, then pulled us through the door after them.

"You're not even fully grown," cooed a strange voice. "Why ever would you think that you could fight us?" It was a vampire's voice, wooing us with its sinister music from the doorway at the end of the hall, where the white walls gave way to a dark and cavernous room. The vampires also had a militaristic form as they entered the dark room ahead of us, the shape of their group becoming more clear as they divided automatically before us and regrouped behind. The children once again stood in a close ring around me, all of us facing out in the dark.

The sun was almost down. This high up, we could just see it, a searing red ball of fire in the yellow tinted sky far away, across the turreted rooves and eaves between. The few shining steel structures winked blindingly white, but the city was mostly the black stone of the room we stood in now. It looked as though it had remained unchanged for centuries; the ceiling was high, the windows bare of glass, thin and long. It was also round, and full of stark white faces. Vampires drifted around the edge, peering down to our precarious position; one moved apart from the others. His voice was high, girlish, and still echoing around the chamber. Long nails like mother of pearl tipped his thin skinned hands, and his whole body looked as though it were covered in some kind of ancient dust, as if a film stood between him and my eyes. But he was real. He kept talking in his high voice, coming closer. I tried to listen.

"Bella, Bella, Bella…of course you know, in our little city here that word has quite the connotation." I realized he was beaming at me. "It suits you, my dear. You are lovely." He faltered as his gaze took in my small bodyguards. "It is unfortunate you chose your alliances so wantonly. We could have been _such_ friends." He turned his back to me, and one of the others rushed forward—a big, oafish vampire, if there can be such a thing. The first one put his long fingered hand on his chest and clucked his tongue. "Caius, my darling brother, show some patience—"

"—The sun will set! The sun is almost down, Aro, and I can _smell_ her—" The vampire spoke with a feverish intensity. His eyes were brilliantly red, swirling in their sockets over the children. This was the one that Jacob said he would kill, my Jake, _beautiful strong Jacob—_

The scalding terror locked my breath. All of these red eyes, _red eyes on me_—

She startled me back again. "Where is she?" The fierce tiny alpha's high clear voice was unaltered. It was as if she were telling Jacob she could fight for rank again, as if she were talking to Edward about how useless it was to learn to read, as if she were shrugging off her human name—she sounded firm and bright. "Alice? Is she here?"

"Everyone is impatient," clucked the lilting voice inside the vampire called Aro. His lips were still, his head cocked to the side, and a chiding sigh escaped him. He waved a white hand to his right without looking in that direction, and the vampires there parted immediately to reveal a shadowed pocket in the back. A woman knelt there in the dark.

I thought at first she was chained, but then I saw she was free, and actually a vampire; she was so filthy that the incandescence of her skin was dulled. And then she raised her face, her eyes so pitch and wide there was no pupil, only a divided void where eyes should be—and then I saw the face around the void, and screamed. _Alice._


	59. Chapter 59

"She won't feed on humans," sighed Aro again, as if this were the saddest story anyone had ever told him. Several other vampires snickered; no lights came on as the sun dropped, and I had difficulty telling who was who. They all wore identical cloaks, the color altered occasionally from black to grey of varying degrees. The little girl vampire always stayed close to Aro, her vivid eyes following his every move as lovingly as the receptionist's had followed the vampire with the violet eyes. "She's practically starving to death, _poverella. _Of course, her mate was more than happy to feed, although you would have thought he was _human_, the way he carried on afterwards." With another wave of his hand, Aro revealed a defeated Jasper, his hands covering his face in shame. The black cloaks swirled around them, sighs and twittering laughter echoing cruelly across the chamber.

"You should let them go." I heard myself speak, and my voice sounded so darkly firm I didn't recognize it. The room hushed as Aro turned towards me, one slender brow raised. His brutish brother sneered and turned back towards another vampire with the same translucent, dusted skin. "I don't know how they ended up here, but this isn't right." Alice stared at me, her mouth slightly open, her chest moving. She was trying not to smell me.

"I suppose you think I—we—should let you all go," mused Aro, who also watched Alice, slowly coming closer to her. "Unfortunately, that does not serve the purpose of the guard." His chiding tone remained. "You see, I have a talent not unlike your former lover's, Bella Swan. I, too, can read minds. And I saw, in her very unusual and beautiful mind, your arrival, and her recruitment of these animals….and the others." He looped a casual arm over Alice's shoulder and pulled her up. Her head lolled to the side. "It's truly incredible—to think all of this began because she saw it happening! Perhaps, if she had not spoken out loud at that unfortunate meeting with the dogs…" He waved an elegant hand. "But who can know. Her mind shows only the solid present. And, theoretically, the future." He'd moved surreptitiously closer to me and the children. A familiar growl rumbled out of them.

"Theoretically?" I scoffed at him, imitating the children's bravery. "Alice sees the future, all right. Maybe you're just afraid of what she sees."

He shook his head, his expression piteous. "The closer we have come to the day of your arrival, dear Bella, the less she sees." Alice's black eyes bore in to me. "She was once in an asylum, as a human, you know." Aro's gaze turned back to the tiny vampire beneath his arm. "I didn't think it was possible for a vampire to go insane, but alas…all she sees now is a…blankness. An emptiness."

"It's because she's starving," hissed the pale little girl vampire from behind her master. Aro shook his head.

"No, my dear Jane." He loosed his arm from around Alice and she instantly fell to the ground. "It's because of those dogs—" he looked back at me "—Bella here has fallen in with a bad crowd. But thanks to Alice's extensive conversations about them with dear, noble Edward, I can surmise what is happening."

"We should kill them now," Caius whimpered, his hands shaped like claws. His terror put off the closest vampires, who all drifted away, except for the other one like him. The third whispy vampire stared at nothing, aloof to everything. It was almost as disconcerting as Caius's rabid behavior.

"Brother, they are surrounded. We vastly outnumber them. We know the exact point of congregation for the werewolves you so fear, we know the numbers and talents of all the dogs they brought from the New World—your fear, surely, is irrational." It occurred to me that Edward had not expected the entire Guard to be present when we arrived, but the room was dense with vampires. Nothing else Aro had said was surprising; I knew that because of Alice's blanked mind when it came to the wolves, there were some surprises yet. At least, I hoped. Aro was now looking at the smallest alpha. "I wanted to make these five an offer."

"No," the girl spoke heatedly. Alice's condition had rattled her.

"You're from Sweden?" Aro didn't wait for her to answer, but again drifted closer, nearing Alice. "There was quite a population there, once upon a time," he cooed softly. "Very fierce, very resilient."

"What kind of offer could you possibly have for these beasts?" Caius sneered, and the one called Jane twittered.

"I once enjoyed the company of dogs, in my long ago human existence," Aro continued in his soft voice, then snapped his head towards his brother in the unrestrained manner of an excited vampire. "Imagine, if the guard had a set of them—"

"No," the girl said again. "We've been told about joining your guard."

"Oh?" Aro turned towards her curiously.

"Slavery," spat the little alpha, and then she screamed in sheer pain. The line of the children broke as she crashed to her knees, her hands clutching her temple.

"Jane, dear," Aro said impatiently, and the alpha collapsed, breathing deeply with her eyes clenched shut. "They're only children, after all." She rose to her knees, then slowly stood; her white face wore an expression of pure hatred. "Well," Aro said blithely, and Jane cowered a bit, her white face wary. "That ends that." He cast an eye over us again, and his shoulders raised smoothly. "There seemed to be no convincing them anyway. But Bella," he soothed, gliding slowly towards me, "now that you understand the danger you face….perhaps you will accommodate some of my curiosity?"

I understood that he was saying the children would suffer if I didn't do what he wanted. The little alpha swayed on her feet. Alice refused to raise her face, staring instead at the black stones with her bottomless eyes; her lover moaned softly and pulled his hair. "If I give you what you want, will you let them go?"

"You have little I want," Aro said, suddenly callous beneath his beneficent smile. His red eyes ticked across the children's faces. "I am merely curious…is it true Edward cannot read your mind?" Behind him, the little girl vampire hissed. Her expression was incredulous.

"Yes," I said. Aro had turned to his tiny accomplice, his brow furrowed as well. She looked back at him with wide eyes.

"Come here," he murmured to me, moving suddenly and quickly next to Alice. He held one of her limp wrists, and then she screamed. My Alice, screaming on the floor.

"Let her go!" I pushed past the children before I realized what was happening, and they recircled in their tight defensive posture as I landed next to Alice, snatching her hand from his grasp. Alice's wail was only less loud than the scream of rage from Jasper, who was restrained by four vampires on the other side of the smirking Jane.

"Jane," whispered Aro, and Alice quieted. Like a ton of bricks, the previous scene with the small alpha made more sense—Jane hurt them with her _mind_. With my focus on the crumpled, dirty vampire I loved, I didn't notice that Aro had slipped a cool finger around my wrist until he was pulling me upright. Away from Alice. Away from the children.

The last rays of the sun shot out from the edge of the sky, blasting the room with rich, red beams of light. The skin of the vampires shone like stars. Aro's grip tightened. His expression changed from a mirror of Jane's infuriated incredulity to pure, unadulterated joy. It was horrifying.

"It doesn't work for Edward, or Jane, or myself….Bella, my darling, you are truly remarkable." I recoiled from his touch, his words—I didn't want Aro to compliment me. I didn't want the children to hear his words, or Alice—I didn't want to be anything Aro _wanted_. It felt dirty. I pulled harder on my wrist, and he let me go with a look of sheer delight on his ancient face. He turned to Alice. "Are you still hungry, dear?"

Alice didn't move. The sun was dropping quickly, more and more of the room giving in to impenetrable blackness as it swallowed the vibrant red; I wondered how the children would see to protect themselves. For the one fleeting second before Aro pushed me to the ground, I locked eyes with the tiny alpha. The red light made her pale skin glow like the vampires around her. Her eyes were closed, her lips parted. She seemed as though she were experiencing a private rapture.

I felt my collarbone snap as I clattered to the ground next to Alice. Alice, whose rigid black eyes avoided me at all costs, whose mouth hung open with a string of drool. She tried to crawl away from me but Jane tortured her, and then Aro spoke in his calming, wretchedly smooth voice. "Just one bight, little Alice." A chorus of wicked laughter erupted behind him. "You bight her, and your beloved Jasper lives." A sound I recognized ripped through the waves of lilting, heartless laughter, and Alice suddenly came to life, scrambling desperately to stand and run towards her mate. The laughter reached a roar. I threw up.


	60. Chapter 60

I didn't know if they'd torn off his arm, or his leg. I didn't believe Alice had seen this coming—the full guard was here. _Where was the pack?—_from the sounds that were made when they were leaving, they could've been doing anything—and then I remembered Edward's hesitation. _The pack wasn't coming._ The growing roar, the way the children and I had gotten away…the werewolves had attacked Edward. Alice could never have seen it, because of Leah…Panic and more panic moved the ocean inside of me, spilling tears from my eyes and sweat across my back. What could we do? We were trapped. Alice had been wrong, thwarted by the fog from the wolves.

_What could I do? _

Aro wanted me. My body wretched again, and I looked at Alice.

_We didn't have to die_. Aro wanted me.

The children could join the guard, as could Alice…and they could warn the pack, break away later. They could live—_bet high,_ I told myself. _See if he wants me enough to set them free first. _All the pain in my body was numbed by the sudden desperation flooding through me, and I lifted my head.

"Aro, you want me to work for you?"

"Work is what humans do, dear," he cooed. Jane glowered; I saw she wasn't as enthusiastic about my impending vampirism. Well, we had that in common. "But yes—I think you would find yourself more than pleased with the arrangement—"

"Then you have to let them go," I said, and he looked at me with pity painted across his frozen, timeless face. "I'll join you—but I want everyone else to go free."

"You overestimate your worth, Bella." He said in a low, simpering voice. "There's no guarantee that your talent will even be preserved in your new life." I watched him carefully, wiping my eyes with the back of my hand; I tried to think like my father, a cop of twenty years. Aro smiled benevolently. He was bluffing.

"Who else have you turned, because of their human talents?" I stared up at him, and he swirled away from me, trying to hide his expression; young Jane gave him away, however, her face exalted. No wonder she was so young. In spite of his words, Aro himself was impatient. "You'll want me," I said in a low voice, and he froze. "You know better than I do what I am capable of."

"I can change you any time," he beamed back at me. "How strange that you think you have options, choices—"

"I'll kill myself if you don't let them go." He stood very still. The whole room, arcing away from me, above me, loomed in stark colors, frozen. "You change me and hurt them, and I'll tear myself apart—"

"Don't be foolish," he hissed. "Don't be vulgar." Caius watched me with appraising eyes, and the third brother stared wistfully in to the dark. The wind was my only warning before Aro appeared inches from my face. "They live. You serve on our guard."

"And the wolves," I whispered. I forced Jacob from my mind, pushing away the softness of him, the time—was it only days?—together--"The wolves live."

"Your dogs?" For just a fraction of a second, I saw him, Aro; the veil lifted and I saw a vicious, conniving liar and murderer. His breath smelled like rotten flowers, like the wilted wreaths left on graves.

"I'll remember," I whispered to him, to the tomb in his mouth. My human life was ending. _Jacob, Jacob…"_I'll always remember, and I'll never—"

"Fine, then, darling," he sang as he flew away across the room. "Alice, the task is yours. My limited sympathies have been sorely tested." The room erupted with catcalls and bellows, the vampires in hysterical fits of mania over Aro's triumph.

"Do what they want!" I called to the small alpha, whose eyes flew open and glittered at me. I tried to crawl towards Alice, fumbled when the pain in my shoulder shot through me, and then started again. "Alice! Alice! Do what they want!" Her black eyes turned towards me, and the suffering Jasper's pain wrote on her face reminded me once again of the last thing I wanted to think about…Jake. _My Jake_. I started sobbing. "We can get out of here alive—it's okay that you were wrong, Alice, it's okay, but if it will save Jasper…the others—I can join the guard…" We were face to face, and even with the screams and howls and laughter around us, I knew she could hear me. Even with her madness and pain. "It's the only way…" She stared at me.

"It's not supposed to be me," she rasped. Her skin was dry and flaking, the dirt mixing with the thin strips beginning to shred on her hands and knees. The abyss in her eyes swallowed me. "I'm not sure I can, Bella…"

"Why?" Aro's voice was low and sickeningly sweet. "Because…_è incinta_?" He was once again face to face with me, the tomb open and disgustingly fragrant.

The room tilted. My vision swam. "What did you say?" I gasped.

"You don't know?" Jane simpered. "How can you not know?" Jasper's frightened hiss snaked across the floor to me; Alice, he and I were all low to the ground, with the young wolves kneeling close by. Aro straightened up and stared down at me again.

"They are so loud to me," he smiled. "But then, I am very old, much older than any other vampire you have ever met, dear." His smile faded to a strange mix of excitement and sadness. "When you are as old as I am, you can distinguish the splitting of your pulse quite early in the pregnancy….but no matter." He beamed down at me. "You're quite wise. We'll be happy to have you in the guard, and your little fantasia is free to go."

"No," I whispered. Aro waved his arms helplessly.

"Well, Alice, you decide." Jasper's other arm was unceremoniously snapped off with a sound like lightning; it was so dark everyone was shadows as they soared around the room, shrill music everywhere. The last lip of light disappeared far above the vampires heads; I expected to be blind, but instead a soft, milky light bathed the room in the absence of the sun's overpowering rays. "Alice," taunted Aro, and then there was another crack, just as her teeth sank into my arm.


	61. Chapter 61

I was wrong—it wasn't a soft light, a mist—it was smoke. A fire—_there was a fire in my skin! Did anyone else see it? Didn't anyone else_—all coherent thought temporarily left my mind as the agonizing pain seized me, and as I closed my eyes I heard the strangest thing. _I must be dying. I must be dreaming, I must not be here. This is not real._

A quiet, blurry drawl. Samantha, one of the girls I worked with in Tucson, was from Mississippi…it was exactly what she would say at the end of the third shift. "Thank the Lord." _Thahnk thuh Law-ord._ And then my body was not the only thing being ripped by agonized lightning—the world changed. The whole world became suddenly, undeniably and horribly different.

More than anything, it was a world made of noises—of screaming, and screaming, and more screaming. Loud, sharp animal noises, gasps, heavy stones wretched loose and violent, broken eruptions, and screaming. Everywhere, echoing through me, inside of me, the sound of constant screaming. The pain spread, convincing me I was awake… but I could not be awake and see and hear these things. I could not be alive and watching hell open and fill the world with sickness and death. _Horsemen. Apocalypse. This. Is. Not. Real._

I was being carried, but by whom, or where, I did not know. The hands were freezing, and then they were gone as I rattled to the floor again, another bone breaking—something in my arm, as I reached out instinctively to break my fall. The shock of new pain sparking through the fire wrenched my eyes open.

I could only process the sight in front of me as an hallucination. What I saw, what my eyes took in and sent to my uncomprehending mind could not be real, not as real as the aching waves that pulsed through me from the wound on my hand, as the fear making my heart stutter. But I was beginning to know… this _was_ real. My feet impulsively pushed on the floor, skittering on the smooth stones helplessly as the nightmare raged.

The werewolves' fur was dense and thick. They stood upright, like humans, but their forearms were long enough to run on and thickly muscled, like a gorillas; their heads were all snapping, vicious jaws, protruding from their skulls like grotesque alligator snouts. The children they had been were nowhere, and the beasts that took their place were savagely wild, falling on any vamp that dared near them with their wicked mouths. They were the physical opposite of the glimmering monsters that surrounded them, their bodies unwieldy and ungraceful, but equally lethal.

The vampires tried to overtake them with speed, but the tight formation made it difficult. Then I realized there were only four of them in the center.

The largest werewolf by far was pure white. It's eyes were albino pink, visible even in the muted light of the moon, and somehow all the more horrible for it. She ripped and slashed savagely through the vampires, who fled from her, close by me; I remembered Edward's nervous words, and scrabbled on the floor to get away from her just as the lurid pink eye rolled my way.

I was being dragged—carried away again by unseen protectors. The white werewolf screamed and staggered toward me, using her razor clawed arms to help her. It occurred to me that whoever had me wasn't Alice, and tried to twist my head. My broken bone protested, and the flashes of pain creeping along my veins conspired to make me totally rigid. _Dead. Rigor mortis. _Like the screamers, the white ghosts---

The white wolf swung a paw at my savior, and I dropped again. This time, she picked me up, roaring. And then I saw them, and everything dropped to slow motion. Each movement was distinct, crisp; each heartbeat lasted an hour.

The vampires were going to close in on the children, who tightened their ring. Their strikes became erratic and harried. And then, in front of them….were _wolves._ True wolves. And then more of the upright fighters locked in battle with the vamps…and then the screams. Screaming. Screaming. Always, that hell of endless screaming.

The pack had arrived. The white wolf carried me roughly away, locked beneath one arm, and then I was on the floor again, my nose smashing and blood running down my face as I tried to roll over and time abruptly catching up to me. I was crippled by the pain from the venom. I tried to crawl away as the werewolf loomed over me, terrifying and rank.

Aro was my secret savior. His papery skin was torn, the grey robe he wore open and baring his fragile seeming shoulder where the white wolf had landed a blow. Her vicious jaws snapped at him as he ducked her, faster and faster, swirling robes and white skin shining. "Bella, my dearest, we shall have to meet again," he trilled, his voice animated and harried. "I'm sure you understand." He intended to dodge her.

And then a silver wolf leapt at him and he ran, just as Jane's pale, fragile seeming form appeared before the white werewolf. Her lips were locked in a wicked grimace, and the monster fell to its knees before her, clutching its head. I could practically see the little girl inside of its shape, screaming in horrified pain. Jane disappeared, she moved so quickly, and then she held a brutal arm in her tiny hands, and then—_crack_! The werewolf howled, agonized.

Leah caught Jane off guard. She dove fearlessly at the vampire, snagging it in her teeth before it teased itself loose and ducked another jump. Suddenly Leah was the one being tortured; Jane hissed as the white alpha rushed her and caught a thin arm in her remaining claw. When the vampire turned her mind on her captor, Leah pinned her against the wall. Terror crushed Jane's sneering face as she once again traded off her attention, and this time the mistake was fatal. The white werewolf's open mouth descended on her and I closed my eyes _tight, tight, tight_—screaming, screaming, more screaming…endless.

The battle wasn't near over. I opened my eyes again, thinking only that I had to crawl, I had to get away, and instead I froze, my legs dead and unmoving with only my right arm still functional. There was blood on the floor. _Extend the arm. Push my fingers through the blood, find the cracks with my fingertips. Pull. Extend the arm. Push my fingers…Pull…._An arm—an inhuman arm, but an arm—landed on the floor close by, and I changed course. More blood. A pair of wolves flanked a swiftly moving, muscled vampire with black hair. A second vampire appeared, and my heart sank, but then they gripped the first one and I looked away. _Emmett._ Could it have been…? I refused to look again. My elbow wouldn't extend completely. My face was frozen in a horrified grimace.

I wondered if my children were already dead inside of me.

And then—hot hands lifted me off of the ground. "Damn Bella," Leah muttered. "What were you thinking?" She slung me beneath her arm, much as the white werewolf had, and then I realized Leah was dragging her long white body with her free hand. Two bodies in two hands. No wonder she was in human form. Leah scanned the area around us like a wary veteran. She seemed calmer now than she had earlier; I suddenly realized the pain had made me delirious when her hair turned in to snakes. It was almost comforting—maybe I was asleep, maybe none of this was real, but no…_They were biting me—no_, Bella, no, I told myself. _It's just the venom. _My tear ducts could no longer produce tears.

"Just the venom," I whispered, but Leah wasn't paying attention to me. Her snake ridden face turned instead towards the huge white body she dragged, and she carefully placed me on the ground next to her other charge. The area was momentarily clear of the fighting. We were almost to the entrance way.

"Don't," Leah was saying. The snakes were biting her face, but instead of blood, water ran down her cheeks. _A river. _"Don't," she said, over and over and over. _Take me to the sea. Cool me. _

The white wolf lurched closer to me. Leah's snakes covered her face completely in a writhing, mobile mass.

And then she bit me. The little alpha—it was almost gentle, her teeth were glacial knives, stabbing through the heat. She bit the same arm Alice had; she made a twin crater, and the sea opened in my chest, and I could not see of feel anything but pain, and more pain, and more pain, sinking deep below the black water of the ocean. But she was not done—Leah pulled on her, the snakes liquefying and roaming down her long golden arms, and the white wolf bit me one last time, right on my chest. A tiny nip. A puppy's unintentional bight. The venoms traveled together, lacing, intertwining beneath my skin, racing towards my heart.

_Jake._

_Pull me from the water. This taste is new—copper, white heat and the burn, the always ripping burn, but ice water. I am choking to death on the ice water, just like before—I know this place. Save me, please—save me one more time, please. _

_Jacob._


	62. Chapter 62

_Let me tell you about the dream I dreamed when I was burning._

_Let me tell you about the place—the world is white in every direction, I cannot tell snow from sand from sea. White dunes, white waves, ice—is it the blasted desert outside of Phoenix? Or have I found my way back to First Beach in winter? I can't tell. I look in every direction for the sun, but all I can see is cirrus clouds in all directions, a white feathery ceiling pressing down from far away. I am alone._

_But then I see them—walking towards me, but from so far away. The wind is stirring the clouds above me, the air feels heavier, but not with rain. Something else—I can't tell. But there they are. I run towards them._

_Two. Not my two, not the two, not the ones_ _I dreamed I knew; just one of those, and Sarah. White skin, white hair, the wolf is almost gone from her. Her eyes are no longer blue; the albino pink is the only change I see remaining from her true self. She is trapped in human form._

_"No," she contradicts my unspoken words. "When she's safe with you, I'll go back. I just didn't want to frighten her." We both look down at the girl holding her hand._

_Golden skin, slender limbs, her face is the same shape as mine, and she has my father's eyes. Strait black hair to her waist immediately puts me in mind of her own father, and when I study her features further I can see his broad lips on her small chin, too lush for her young features. But she'll change, I think, so fast, and she can grow in to them—_

_"Go." The young alpha is urging her towards me, but she lingers, her body darkening even as Sarah's appears to become even brighter, blending further in to the whiteness around us." "It's time for you to go back." The little one stares out at me with the stubbornness she could have gotten from either of her parents. It's almost enough to make me laugh._

_"You got her out of the room?" I want to hug the pale girl, I want to rush towards her and open my arms, scoop them both up and hold them closer, closer, closer. But I know for each step I take towards them they will only be one further. Always just that one further. And this seems to be the closest Sarah can come now._

_She is laughing. I have never heard her laugh. "It was easy! It stank like smoke, and she ran away. She was more worried about all of you than anything else."_

_"Is daddy okay?"_

_The little ones voice is so soft, so deep…so serious. So much of her father, so much of the greatest parts of my life, it brings tears immediately to my eyes. "What do you mean honey?" I am on my knees now, but I still can't get any closer to the two of them, even though now I am half crawling towards them. I can't keep myself from trying._

_"She couldn't find him," Sarah says, and she is not laughing now. "Like I can't find Alice." She looks at me curiously. "I don't think anyone else has come."_

_"Would you rather they had?" I realize my knee-jerk, maternal guilt-trip is inappropriate too late, and further more, that it won't mean much to her. She wipes the curiousity from her face._

_"No," she says. I am not prepared for her reply. "My mother is here, somewhere. I'll find her, and the rest of my pack." She offers me a half smile, still so strange on her face. "My first alpha is here too." Another laugh—joyful but still sharp, hard, spiking through the empty white. "Tell the Hunter that. And tell him my little pack can stay with him as long as he is good to their wolves."_

_"I will," I whisper. She is fading, fading, fading._

_"And tell him not to call me Sarah," she says, sounding chiding. "I don't ever have to be human again, so I don't need that name. It was nice of Leah to try, I thought, but still…" The thought trails away. One of her hands finds its way to her hip, and she reminds me, for all the world, of the little boy who first showed her how the La Push wolves transform. As if she knows, she nods. "And tell_ him _my name, please." I understand; she means the bratty boy wolf. She makes a sound—a wolf sound, a wild sound, a monster's sound. I understand._

_"I will," I tell her. I am on my knees in the mysterious white, my hands outstretched, but I know only the little one might come to me now. "I promise."_

_The small alpha pushes my little girl. "Go," she says again, all business. "You can have it. She was your grandmother anyway." Her white face shines at me again, lurid pink eyes beaming out. _

_My daughter staggers towards me. It's hard for her to leave the side she's on, but her small brown legs are sturdy, preternaturally strong. Quicksand, I think. The white—it's sand. No bottom._

_But she makes it across. I cradle her, crush her against me, feel the fire in her like explosions across my body, consumed by lava._

"_Your brother doesn't like it when we're away from him," I whisper. My eyes are searching for the other girl, the one who won't come back. I can no longer see her; not even the sunset hues of her eyes remain visible as the clouds descend on us, but then, terrifyingly, her voice is right next to my ear._

"_You should really take her to see Leah soon." _

_And she's gone._

When I open my eyes, I am shivering, but still feverishly warm. Weighted down by Jacob's limbs—I recognize his long brown fingers where they rest on my cheek and turn my head to kiss them.

The first face I see, however, is Carlisle's.

More endless white, I realize; the hospital is crisp and blank in every direction. Carlisle's benevolent, handsome face folds inward with relief, and he begins speaking—at least, I see his lips move, but the sounds are too fast and high for me to understand. My neck hurts, so I let imy head roll backwards again, and as I do it turns; I see who is sharing my room.

Alice.

Grief and guilt. And behind her, Edward, and beside him, Emmett, Quil, Rose, Charlie…too many. The are making more sounds—not as high and shrill as Carlisle's, but so much—Charlie is coming towards me, Renee is fluttering in from the door, Emily is crying. There is a lot of smiling. Relief. Exhaustion. Grief and guilt.

The little alpha is not there. Neither is Leah.

But I forget all of that—I forget everything then, because I see something that makes me forget everything, that takes away my breath, fills my eyes with tears. Something I never thought I would see again.

Jacob's face is closest. He says nothing. His hands are careful on my face; he was sitting next to my bed and his body was so long that when he fell asleep, his arms wrapped around me.

"It's okay," I whsper. "We all made it back—" he cuts me off with choked sobs, kissing my face wetly. He smells damp and unhappy; he smells a little like he did that first night in my room, in from the woods. I try to finish before I forget--"except Sarah." But I don't say Sarah. I say her wolf name, and then the room is quiet again.

Dead quiet.

Until Alice laughs.


	63. Chapter 63

*****

FIVE YEARS LATER

"Bella, you're going to be late," Emily says this to me in the low voice she usually reserves for her oldest daughter whose behavior, at twelve, has taken to alternating between a toddler's and a middle aged divorcee's. It is the ultimate mother voice.

"How do you do that?" I grin up at her as I begin to stand, my daughter holding on to my hands but turning to look at Emily over her shoulder. "How in the world do you manage to make me feel so guilty when I haven't even done what you're worried about yet?"

"It's an art," she grins back. "You'll perfect it somewhere between the first day of school and _why-can't-I-go-to-the-dance_." We laugh together, shaking our heads.

"I don't want to go to school," Sarah says, interrupting. Her long black hair is back in two braids, her wide mouth—her father's mouth—pulled down at the corners in a professional pout. Her frown looks especially heavy on the small point of her chin. Emily laughs again, loudly.

"Nevermind. Looks like you'll be starting a year early." I shoot her a wistful smile while I get down on my knees to face my daughter again, cupping her round brown cheeks in my hands. They look so pale on her skin; it makes me think of her father, and I sigh, knowing I'm definitely going to be late.

"Sarah," I begin. "School doesn't start for another year, and I am not going to talk to you about it yet. Don't let the other kids get you riled up." She looks like she might start to cry. We've never been apart for more than an hour or so, and the impending separation—all of four days—must seem like forever to her. I sigh again. "What are you going to do when I leave?"

"I don't know," she whimpers, and I give her a big, fat, fake smile with my eyebrows up.

"Yes you do…" She stares back at me. Damn that stubbornness. "You're going to have dinner in the restaurant with your uncles and aunts and cousins, and then you're going to play Chutes and Ladders with Uncle Quil, and when you get up tomorrow you're going fishing with your grandpas." In spite of herself, she is smiling back at me by the end. She starts to twirl back and forth a little bit, not quite ready to admit she is happy about any of this yet. "And Auntie Alice and Emily are going to take you shopping the day after that, and then you get to see Aunt Leah when she comes home from Australia on Friday—"

"—and Uncle Edward," she finishes, grinning widely now. She pronounces _uncle_ as _un_-_coo_. I rub noses with her while she giggles and then turn her loose. She runs towards Emily and bounces on her toes, reaching up. "Let's go!" Emily salutes her and spins around; when Sarah follows she shoots me a look over her shoulder that says _run while you can_. I pick up my tiny bag from beside the front door and sneak quietly out, demanding a kiss from my son as he zooms across the yard barely ahead of a pair of small, cavorting wolves giving wild chase.

"I love you Mommy," he pants, and then automatically resumes the game of tag. I find I have to make myself actually walk to the car, picking one leg up and putting it down a little further away. The engine is obnoxiously quiet; I've never adjusted to any other vehicle besides the truck, in spite of my husband's enthusiastic recommendations and creative tinkering. He jokes that I'm the only woman on the planet who prefers her car be tuned to run louder, rather than the other way around. He and Edward always get a good laugh out of it. Emmett usually cuts in at the end of that to say that I've always had bad taste, anyway, and then it's a free for all—I _am_ going to be late. Particularly if I keep letting my mind wander.

Port Angeles's lovely little Italian place has not changed since the first time I ate there, more than a decade ago. In the years since I returned to Forks, the menu hasn't been updated once, and whenever the mess of our family decides to converge on it—much to the amusement and concern of the management, who then reverentially nod to Emily (quite famous now in restaurant circles)—we always order the same things. The last time we were here, as a celebratory welcome home dinner for Edward and Leah after last year's big mission in Tibet, one of the managers confidentially whispered to Sam that they always have extra mushroom ravioli on hand, just in case we stop by.

I definitely need to keep my mind on the road. Seth is probably on duty tonight, and he'll have way too much fun writing me up for speeding.

"I was beginning to think you'd gone over to Billy's side," my husband smirks down at me as he peels himself away from the wall outside of the restaurant. Jacob's brilliant smile eclipses the sun as it drops below the horizon behind him, his hands reaching out for me. I hurry into his arms without stopping to think about it, and we kiss on the sidewalk like teenagers. _I'm in love with the way you touch me,_ I think for millionth time, as I feel his fingers tease through my hair, a hot pinky brushing my earlobe and throat. I'm suddenly disappointed that we decided to go to dinner before we leave for our honeymoon, five years in the making.

"I've never taken a side," I murmur into his broad chest. He pulls away and leads me in, his hand warming my body electrically as he tows me along. The staff nods at us and smiles, the owner himself leading us to a private table along the glass back wall, facing the setting sun. Warm light sweeps over Jake's ageless face, permanently in the prime of his life, joy transforming his handsome features from their usual weariness. He steals the words from my mind before I can say them.

"Only you could outshine this sunset," he whispers. He hasn't let go of my hand, reaching with ease across the table between us. I reach for him with my other one involuntarily and he grasps it. We gaze at each other.

We haven't been alone, during the day, in a very, very long time.

"Do you want to celebrate this one? Or should we call the whole thing off and do this next year?" He continues the opening line of conversation, still smiling. I take the bait.

"Why can't we celebrate them both?"

"Well, because they're months apart," he grins, and we both laugh at our fathers' collective absurdity, the silliness of living. Billy Black has always insisted that we've been married since the conception of our children, less than a week after my return to Forks, using the same ceremonial qualifiers Jacob shyly seduced me with. Charlie remained adamant that we have a slightly more public ceremony on First Beach, complete with legal documentation. Their disagreement has never failed to amuse Jacob and I, and every year we receive anniversary gifts from each of them on vastly different days. This year, we are having a private dinner on the same day we spoke our vows on the white, still sands of La Push.

And we are finally, finally going on a proper honeymoon. The wine arrives; I can tell it's not from the restaurant and will probably accompany us where ever we go, and _that_, Jacob has refused to reveal. "From Emily," he nods, confirming my suspicions.

"Does she know where we're going?" I look at him, mock accusation in my voice. He grins.

"Everybody knows but you, Bells." The waiter whispers in his ear, and Jake nods. The momentary interruption pulls his face away from the basking joy I'd been seeing, some of the seriousness returning just as the sun leaves us. I squeeze his hand.

"It's nothing," he says. "Embry can definitely handle it." The waiter has reappeared with a basket of fresh rolls, and I realize I'm starving. It's hard to let go of his hands and eat.

"Are you sure?" I don't really want to ask; I want him all to myself, and I don't want to even entertain the idea that something more important—_always something more important_—could possibly come up at this moment. Our moment. But I feel like I have to. He studies me with knowing eyes.

"Don't worry about anything, Bells," he rumbles, his voice suddenly soft. The erotic charge that surges through me when I hear it stills the knife in my hands, almost makes me drop the bread I'm holding. The look in his eyes tells me he feels exactly the way I do about our time together. "There is nothing in this world that can come between us."

"For the next four days, anyway," I smile ruefully, not wanting to let go of the release I feel; on the other hand, I don't want to build up my hopes and have them dashed, mercilessly, later on. But Jacob's intensity doesn't waver, and he leans forward, taking my hands in his again.

"Nothing comes between us, Bella," he says in the same soft voice. His black eyes are unblinking, the long eyelashes that frame them stock still. "Nothing is more important to me than you and our family, and that never changes." I break his gaze and rub my thumbs absently over his skin, looking down. I know what he's saying is true, but I know he understands that's not really what I meant, either. He sighs. "I've got everybody working over time on this, Bells. There's literally no possible chance that anything can interfere with us—they _want_ to help. Everybody." He catches my thumbs, desperate to make me understand. "Please. Let me spoil you, and just relax and enjoy it, okay?"

I don't expect to cry, but I do. Just a little bit. It's the sight of our hands, really, that does it; Jacob's are scarred and calloused, but in spite of their evident hard use, they are still the hands of a young man. My hands are also scarred, now. They have the raw, bitten nails of a mother, and the drying skin of a woman who's reached thirty. I know now that they are not old hands, precisely, but they look ragged and ancient next to the firm, strong skin of my husband. I pull them away, and hide the gesture by grabbing a napkin and dabbing at my eyes. Jacob looks momentarily miserable. I notice the waiter is fluttering nervously behind him with steaming trays of food, unsure of what to do, and I wave him closer.

"It's alright, honey," I say, knowing the young man is probably terrified of upsetting Jacob. "I'm just over-excited that I get my husband all to myself tonight." I shoot a well practiced smile at him that I know can convince anyone—except Jake—that things are perfectly perfect. He places our food carefully on the table and then disappears. Jacob's eyes are still sad.

"I keep hoping you'll outgrow that," he mumbles. The food smells delicious, and I grin at him, trying to aim for a subtle acknowledgement that what's happened is done, and dig in to my ravioli.

"There's not much I'm going to outgrow at this point," I say, my mouth full. I smile at him with my cheeks stuffed, and in spite of himself, he laughs his wonderful, rowdy laugh.

"See?" He shakes his head. "You're even doing it with me." I point to his food, as if to say shut up and eat. "You don't have to make everyone comfortable all the time, Bells," he finishes, still shaking his head. I'm glad his hair is loose tonight. It moves around his face, beautiful black ropes of it, and he has to push it over his shoulder to keep it from interfering with his food. He catches me watching him and kinks an eyebrow at me. "I wore it down for you."

"I love it," I say, and then we've forgotten the world again, and it seems, for now, that it has forgotten about us. We pass two, then three hours just eating, talking, laughing, and holding hands. Nothing of vital importance intrudes; everything is refreshingly, fleetingly light.

The table is cleared, except for the absurdly expensive espresso Alice instructed the restaurant to give us and the home-made blueberry tort Emily sent over. No one is still at the restaurant, in fact, but the owner and us; Jacob reassures me that this is part of the plan and we are not inconveniencing anyone (while wryly rolling his eyes) as the candles flicker around us. The view outside of the darkened windows is ghostly, but the virus inside of me sharpens the glistening tips of the waves as they gently roll in beneath the stars. Jacob follows my eyes, leaving the last bight to wait.

"This was probably the worst time to do this," I hear myself say. I don't mean to say it; the evening's been wonderful, and we've managed to avoid talking about anything but the kids and family and books and movies and whatever else we could think of that had nothing to do with what dominates our lives. I don't say anything else when I hear him sigh.

"Bells, there are some things we should probably talk about. Regarding that," he says. My eyes find his; the soft light in the room only intensifies how beautiful he is. The smooth, blank slip of white that divides his lip gleams in the candle light.

"Should we?" I take another sip of coffee and look down at the tort, which is delicious, but more than I can finish. "I don't even know why I brought it up."

"Because it's hard not to think about all that stuff. And there never _has_ been a better time for our honeymoon, so why wait…" Jacob murmurs, taking my hand in his and ignoring the spoon inside of it, not wanting to finish the thought: there never _will_ be a better time. "Listen—I didn't want to tell you right now, but we may as well talk about it, instead of having it ruin the rest of our time alone."

I look up at him sharply. "It's not ruining things, Jake, I just—"

"I'm tired of it too, Bells," he says, firmly, and he is talking about everything, I know, and I also know that something has changed. He doesn't let go of my hand. "I'm retiring. Not right away—" he stumbles to continue after I gasp—" but it looks like I can in about five years."

"Oh my god, Jake," I say. I begin to cry again, and he moves around to my side of the table and wraps his incredibly warm, comforting arms around me. I'm embarrassed that this is how I've reacted, partially because it lays bare so much of the pain I've been lying to hide. Jacob has always known, though, of course, and he holds me tighter, and tighter, whispering.

"When Leah and Edward went to Tibet, they covered the last territory we needed to reach," he begins. "There's enough now that Aro had to recognize the need for the Council, and his ranks are steadily shrinking." I weep in to his collar openly. "We weren't sure of it before, but that's why Edward and Leah are back in Australia—it's where he wanted to meet them."

"How do you know it's not an ambush?" I stare in to his eyes, suddenly afraid, and one of his hands creeps up to my face and sweeps my cheek with a broad thumb.

"Well, there's Alice, but more importantly, the vamps there are organized. Way organized." He smiles. "They actually have registration numbers—like a census—for who's vegetarian and who's not." His smile fades a little bit, but only a little. "There's a lot of them still that aren't really interested in giving up the old way, but there are a lot who already had before Leah and Edward even found them. Apparently, they had a situation there like the South did, years ago—we're talking _vampire_ years, so who knows how many hundreds of centuries—and lots of them got sick of killing. Crazy, right?" I nod feebly. "Well, all those registered veggie vamps are a guaranteed body guard squad for the United Representatives of the Supernatural USA." He knows that name always makes me laugh out loud. The sound is startling in the big, empty room.

"You guys are going to have to think of a real name for yourselves eventually," I say. "Not everybody appreciates Leah's sense of humor."

"You do, though," Jake smiles at me, "and that's really what I care about." I snuggle closer in to his chest, feeling the heat there spreading through me, his heart loud and clear to my ears.

"Is this for real?" I am afraid—_don't take this away from me. Don't tell me this and then have it not come true._ "I'm not sure I can believe you."

"It's for real," Jake whispers, and kisses my temple. "The Children of the Moon have agreed to stop turning people just to increase their numbers, and the vampires—the veggies—have done the same." This is old news, repeated to me constantly since the siege in Volterra, when Jacob assumed command not only of the La Push Pack, but the international community of werewolves. "We've been tracking everybody, and it's actually true. They have."

"What about _them_?" I whisper back. He knows I mean the traditional vampires, the ones that have gathered around Aro and continue drinking blood. Their numbers surged drastically following the battle in the Tower, in order to replenish lost numbers; almost the entire guard was killed, if not in battle then in the fire that followed.

"Well," Jake begins, and I can hear something amused and smug in his voice, "we found out something interesting recently that also lead to the meeting." He rearranges me, subconsciously strong enough to pick up my entire weight and shift it without noticing or breaking the flow of his thoughts. "As soon as their numbers went up really high, they started going down again just as suddenly."

"Jasper said that would happen," I remind him, and Jake nods gravely.

"Jasper was right. But also, apparently not everybody was so in love with the guard anyway." He is trying not to be grossly, inappropriately gleeful at the prospect of more slaughter, but he is failing a little; his lips, generously full and impossible to ignore, are smirking. "Some Transylvanian vamps—who are totally uninterested in the way our folks live—have been waiting a long time to take out Aro."

"I'm not getting it," I say, feeling the crease between my brows.

"Aro's fighting a war on two fronts," Jake says simply. "He knows he can't keep fighting us—more and more vampires are giving up eating humans. As soon as they know they can have real relationships again, the newbies don't even care, most of the time." I raise my eyebrows and he nods deferentially. "Well, they can't control themselves, of course. But then, Australia is a big country. With lots of wild animals."

"You can't just ship all of them to Australia," I say, and Jake grins.

"Well, of course not. Why do that, when we can ship some of them to Alaska or, I don't know…Tibet?" I roll my eyes and we laugh again, and then Jacob looks a little more serious and continues. "Aro is in a race with those other old guys to be acknowledged as the legitimate head of the traditional vampires. So—Australia."

"This isn't really the end, then, Jake," I say, a wan smile on my face. "This might be a temporary lull in the fighting, but…" He studies my face, and he's so close I can almost hear the sparks of electricity shooting through his nerves, making his eyes tick back and forth so fast. "Do you really think Aro is just going to give up? He's not. He wants to live forever and ever and ever in some disgusting, blood drenched fantasy land." When I think about Aro I always get angry; Alice has regretted telling me that he was the one that she thought would bight me since the words came out of her mouth.

"It's the nature of the beast, Bells," Jake says, and, for some reason, an undercurrent of his alpha voice intertwines the words. "Those kinds of vamps—the old school—they kill each other. They fight among themselves, they're loners who hate being told what to do." He looks deeply in to my eyes again, wanting me to understand. "We're not even fighting them, most of the time, and they're still dying constantly."

"So you're saying it's only a matter of time before they're too small a minority to worry about?" I sift through the feelings I have about this; even though I loathe them, it seems extraordinarily cruel to wait them out of existence. As I follow this line of thought, I am forced to remember that once, long ago, what began all of this was their wish to do the same to the La Push wolves, and I shudder.

"Well, I wouldn't put it like that," Jake says quietly. "From what we can tell, most new vamps have about a fifty-fifty chance of going either way. Some people are gross and like killing, and those people are not going to be excited about the new diet." He strokes my cheek again. "What really seems to make the difference is whether or not they're mates. When they fall in love, they seem more interested in being able to exist in family units." We are quiet for a minute, thinking of Esme and her brood of werewolf children. Many new foster families have sprung up with vegetarian vamps adopting orphaned children of the moon, in a bizarre, ironic twist of fate. Edward believes this was the most unifying motivator between the two communities, and Leah seems to agree.

_Leah_. "Who is going to take your place?" My hand holds his against my face, and he nods his answer, as if to say, of course you know. I sigh. "But then…"

He shakes his head this time. "She's ready, Bells. We think she may have been born for it." It's a heavy thought. "Edward is happy to point out that it was just us being sexist barbarians that always made us think Seth was next in line, genetically speaking." We grin until something else occurs to me, and I can hear the panic in my voice returning.

"But children, Jake—when can she stop—"

"She doesn't want to stop," Jake tells me gently, knowing that this is the bad news. Leah will stay young, while I age; part of my heart breaks, because I know that Jacob, too, will probably live too long to reasonably stay with me and the thought insidiously aligns itself next to the new knowledge of Leah's plans. Jake and I never talk about it. It's our only taboo. "She has Edward, and he's never going to…" His voice trails away as he looks at me.

The truth is, there is no perfect replacement for Jacob. He is the only creature on earth that could have unified the Children of the Moon with the La Push Wolves, let alone with vampires. Jacob is alpha to thousands and thousands of wolves, many of whom he has never or will never meet, all over the world. He has spent the past five years trying to, while building an impregnable army out of the dregs of a beaten species, the rogue empathetic vampires that didn't want to kill, and his own home-grown warriors. _The_ _Hunter_ is whispered reverentially between allies and screamed in sheer terror by enemies. No one can replace Jake, even if he technically retires from the fragile position of Alpha. My face falls. He pulls me close again.

"This was supposed to be happy news, Bells, honey," he sighs. "This was supposed to be the next Big Bang in our little universe. I can't believe I said the wrong thing, tonight of all nights." His words make me sob a little harder; _our little universe_ hasn't existed since before Volterra, before constant war, before I had to share him, every moment of every day, with thousands of needy people. It would be different, I've always told myself, if he weren't doing something great. Something desperately, unbelievably important that literally no one else in the world could do. I could be one of those house-wives who finally puts her foot down, bringing her ambitious husband to heel. Instead, I'm a librarian who permanently holds her foot aloft, trying desperately to fight off innate selfishness at every turn, so that the world can know peace. And I've never even really cried about it, until tonight. "I'm so sorry, Bells," he whispers.

_Our little universe._ Images of our first night together suddenly invade my mind…I guess I knew I would never be whole again, even if I had no idea what that would really feel like, or how it would actually happen. It amuses me that I thought I knew what love was back then, and I laugh a little, awkwardly, against his neck.

_There are no right words to say, _I think, and begin to kiss him. His body freezes, confused. There is no magic spell, no perfect, reasonable phrase to describe this…this _everything_. Everything we say, even the things we do…love is indefinable, too strange and broad and everywhere to be contained. By my mind, my hopelessly inadequate voice box—by Jacob's new story about retirement. Love like this is too big for all of that.

"Let's go," I whisper to him; the pure embodiment of that energy, for me, is Jacob Black. He is my whole, half-supernatural, all human heart, my dreams and my waking life. "I don't even care where."

He knows what I mean, and carries me out of the door, the owner watching us go with a small smile as he locks the door behind us.

*****

"Wake up Bells," he says, close to my ear, letting his lips graze my throat. I'm asleep in his arms, somewhere in the dark. I hear the wind rustling through pine trees, high above, and try to focus my eyes. My humanity interferes with the strangest things, my vision among them, when I'm sleepy; I've gotten accustomed to having excellent eye sight. Charlie has never gotten over the fact that once I came out of my coma, I was instantly in better health than ever before. No more accidents. No more fainting, or fevers, or anything.

But I still blush, constantly, from all kinds of emotions—embarrassment, excitement, desire, joy—and I am feeling most of them, right now, looking at the place where Jake and I will be spending our honeymoon.

His parents cabin. Where we were first together.

It's the same, but not—I can clearly smell fresh paint and sawdust, and I know some serious renovations have occurred here prior to our arrival. In fact…as I raise my head, opening the car door and moving slowly towards the front door…I can tell that Quil and Embry were here today. Their scent is all over the porch.

"Everybody pitched in," Jake says. His voice is shaky. He is standing on the other side of the car, the door open and dull light pooling around the lower half of his body; I have to tune it out to see the expression on his face.

He's bighting his lip, his teeth tugging nervously on the white scar in the center. It's all I can do not to climb over the hood of the car to get to him.

He lets me kiss him, the last bit of sleepiness totally swept away once the car door is closed and I see his face in the starlight. The clearing around the house is exactly the way I last saw it. We've often spoken of trying to make a trip back, get the kids, spend some real time here, but it never happened. Instead, Billy would make periodic trips up with the twins and Jake and I would sadly shake our heads and say _next time._ "Let me show you the house," he enthuses, and I laugh, because he called the cabin a house. And because I'm not sure I've ever been so happy. It's hard to tell.

We cross the porch—the shape has been retained, but much of the wood is new, and the acrid smell of paint is everywhere—but before he opens the door, he turns to me and silently scoops me in to his strong arms. I am laughing again, just like the last time, my head bumping against his chest as he crosses the threshold.

"Wow, Jake," I breathe, taking in the room as he sets me down. Fresh flowers scent the air, taking the sting out of the paint. The room looks spacious, albeit cozy, with low seats and lush pillows everywhere; the kitchen is now actually a kitchen, done in neutral tones. The modern feel smacks of Alice's tastes. "This is lovely."

"You should see the bedroom," Jake grins, and then swings open a door I hadn't previously noticed. I step through it to discover a round room, the perfect new addition, sculpted windows arcing high above us to let in the starlight. The effect is stunning. "Esme," he explains, and I nod.

The bed in the center has a quilt on it; at first it jars with the more modern seeming room, but then I see it blends well. A delicate star pattern trails the edges, and the subtle colors match the wooden frames of the bed and windows. As I finger the light fabric, I see initials sewn in the pale cloth, and realize that Esme, Rose, Renee, The Clearwater women and Emily all had a hand in it. Jacob quietly steps up beside me. "They all worked on pieces of it," he says, "for a long time. Alice organized it, of course, although she insists she can't sew." He shakes his head, placing one hand on my shoulder. "She says she left something else for us instead."

"Did all the guys work on this together?" As I look around the room, I see the fine construction, the doorway to the bath open and revealing a massive tub. Jacob nods.

"Everybody built something. I think Carlisle did the plumbing on the toilet."

"You're joking," I gasp with laughter, and Jacob shakes his head at me, grinning.

"Nope." He turns my body towards his own, and kisses my forehead. "And when I say everybody, I mean your mom was in here with a hammer at one point, working away."

"Jacob," I breathe, the enormity of the endeavor suddenly hitting me, "how in the world—"

"Well, Bella, what can I say? We have one of the biggest, weirdest, most thoughtful families in the world." He looks deeply in my eyes, watching my face, and smiles again. "You have to understand, Bells…everybody knows how hard things have been on us. And even if you can't see it—you changed the world, honey." I shrug out from under his arms, sighing; I've heard this before. I first heard it from a vampire trying to kill me beside a rainy highway leading to this very house. "Nobody else could have made us all a family. Nobody else could have started this whole thing and kept it rolling until the entire world was in on it." Jacob speaks softly, awe edging around each word.

"Sometimes…." I begin, staring out of the windows over our new bed. "Sometimes I almost wish…" But I can't. I can't regret my Jacob, our beautiful, precocious children, our family. The family that worked this hard to give Jake and I a special place and time with each other. I shake my head and turn back towards him, wrapping my arms around his waist. "This is incredible." He lets me change the subject, understanding everything as if he'd heard it out loud.

"The whole thing was Edward's idea. Once he and Alice are on the same team, boy…look out." We laughed together, and he held me close for a minute. "Speaking of," he mumbles, into my hair, "Alice said she'd like for us to open her gift before we….got settled." I raise my eyebrows, and he shrugs. "She said it'd be in the kitchen."

"Vampire sense of humor, I'm sure," I say, still giddy, still unbelieving. The cabin is the most beautiful building I've ever been in. Even the doorways have been modified to accommodate Jacob's height; skylights above us frame everything in starlight. We stand in the kitchen, holding hands, and don't notice anything flamboyant enough to be from Alice. "That's weird," I say, and we both laugh, dazed and joyful. The house is so quiet. We're all alone. It's wonderful.

"Wait," Jacob says, stopping short, and I almost tell him to forget it, and then think of all the effort so many put in to this evening, Alice among them. He walks over to the fridge and pulls an envelope out from under a magnet there. "This has our names on it," he affirms and walks back towards me. We make our way to one of the couches, and as he rips it open I see a stack of puzzles and games for the kids. That Esme.

"Dear Bella and Jacob," he begins, and I lean away from him to gaze at the book titles on the shelf next to us. "I feel like I am always leaving you mysterious letters. I hope you can forgive my flair for melodrama." We roll our eyes, grinning blithely, and I stand up again to examine the vase of flowers. "In all seriousness," Jacob continues, "I wanted to be very sure of this before I told you, and today I am sure, so I can thank timing for the drama this once." Jake's voice has dropped slightly, some of the glee leaving it. He's trying not to read ahead. I turn to face him, holding one of the lilies in my hands.

"Seeing our futures has become increasingly difficult ever since Volterra, and although it can frustrate me at times I am very happy for the reasons why. However, I know that Bella—forgive me—is unhappy when she thinks about growing older while you, Jacob…" His voice grows faint for a second. "While you, Jacob, must stay young and strong enough to command." We are quiet. The taboo is broken, and the fissures in my heart widen uncomfortably. He lurches on. "I know you have hopes that Leah will take over most of your duties so you can spend more time with Bella while you can. Unfortunately, it has been impossible for me to see how things play out. Try as I might, all of our futures are totally obscured." It was almost amusing to think of how excited the wolves had been when they first discovered Alice couldn't see them. Almost.

Jacob, ever the soldier, continues. "I decided to try and follow someone else, recently, in order to accomplish this: Aro." I almost drop the flowers at this point, and Jacob's voice develops a harder edge. "He has virtually no direct contact with us, and as time has gone by and my effort has increased, it has become easier and easier to discern his future." Jacob and I briefly lock eyes. "This afternoon, I saw all possible paths but one disappear. I can only assume that his meeting with Edward and Leah went well, because I could not watch that, but afterwards it is obvious that he will spend many years—centuries, in fact—in written contact with a growing nation of vampires living with werewolves, none of whom depend on humanity for subsistence. He will isolate in a diminishing traditional vampire community in northern Italy, and in this vein—many, many years from now—his paths once again divide into two. Aro himself may one day give up the old ways.

There is no further battle with the Transylvanians. I can only guess they are killed soon after the meeting today. There is virtually no fighting with us. There seems to be fewer and fewer vampires or werewolves in general, but of the ones who remain, they do not seem interested in living the kind of isolated life necessary for human consumption. In effect, the war is over." Jacob takes a long moment to absorb what Alice is saying. I find there are tears—all of these tears today, so strange after such long years without—on my cheeks. "In three years," he reads, and as he reads, I realize that he too has begun to cry, "there is no correspondence between Aro and yourself, Jake. It seems that Leah succeeds you as Alpha over all the groups and there is no mutiny. She stays in command for several peaceful centuries." Jacob weeps openly now. My legs have given out from under me. "Perhaps Edward is right, and that was her destiny all along. After all, you did kind of end up with a werewolf." We both laugh out loud at that, long, desperate laughter, the only kind of laughter that can follow terrible grief. I crawl towards him as he reads her final words. "I think it's safe, Jake. Your job is done. You were the only one that could stabilize the union, but Leah will lead them well. Love you very much Bella. Happy anniversary. Alice." We hold each other on the couch for a very long time. It begins to rain.

"You can stop phasing," I whisper, finally. I am curled up on top of Jake, who almost fits on the couch. His legs dangle off of the side. Our heartbeats echo back and forth, calling to one another.

"Yes," he smiles, and pulls me tighter against him, and then pulls back. His brows are low. "But you can't."

"Oh," I say, surprised. "Holy crow, Jake, I didn't even think of that." He rolls his eyes whenever I say holy crow.

"It's alright," he replies suddenly, grinning again. "I don't need to phase to keep up with you, old lady." He is still grinning when I slap his chest uselessly with my hand, _and_ when I kiss him.

The kiss doesn't end. It lasts all night, and through the next couple of days. It lasts through his stumbling explanation of why he didn't say that _his_ culture was the one he was referencing when he carried me through the door, so many years ago; it lasts through a full day of quiet and breakfast in bed, among other things. It continues when I go back to work and he has a conference with Leah and Edward, telling them, with Alice, what the future looks like. It lasts through the fearful First Council, where the three of them, and Aro, convene and discuss the future of their respective species; it lasts through his depression when he does stop phasing, and his great joy when the kids start. It lasts through Leah and Edward's wedding, and through all our parents' funerals, and our own children's weddings. It lasts forever.

It lasts longer than we do. It can not end.

*****

Well, ladies and gentlemen, that is the end of that. I hope you enjoyed it. Before I get thirty emails with questions left unanswered, let me tell you that this story is done, but there will be several out-takes in the final chapter (last and next). None of them are from Bella's perspective, and I debated about making them a separate story altogether, but they aren't, really. They're all a part of this one, sort of kind of youknowwhatImean. Watch for it within the next two weeks. When my lj is up with the CYOA version of this story, it'll be in my profile page. That may take some time—I'm kinda burnt on being Bella Swan's voice for a while. In the meantime, this was great fun. I really, really appreciate the incredibly kind words of the reviewers—I can't thank you enough, any of you, and although I hope to wind my way through and send some personal thank yous, I want you to know how rewarding it has been right now. Many, many thanks.


	64. Chapter 64

AN: I don't know how yall made it through this when the DocsManager butchered my formatting, but ten people gave reviews and slogged it out like champs. I'm not sure this will update as if its a new chapter, and if it does I apologize in advance; I'm still working on the CYOA fic and its a pain in the butt (it will only really work well if its all finished, as opposed to a chronological story, which can be published in regular chaps. Its maddening-logistically, I shoulda known, but there ya go). Take care-

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The girl is so slender; she has felt the muscles growing on her bones like an unwelcome cancer for years, but her frame is no longer changing, and she is thin. She is unlike the rest of them; she feels cold, for example, but she hears them thinking it's psychological. She dreads the winter-bare feet in wet snow—while they wait for the summer to end, panting through the whole season.

"You _look_ like dogs," she snaps, when she sees them sprawled out and sagging, wilted in the sun. But it's not summer now, and although she cannot bring herself to shiver in front of them—_block it out, _she hisses at herself as the ice burns the bottom of her foot—she knows they can still tell. She gets cold. They don't.

_Maybe it's to make you a better tracker_, Sam thinks at her. _Maybe your senses are heightened in different ways_—

_Jesus Christ_, mutters Embry. _She's just cold. She's skinny, so she gets cold. _

_Stop thinking about me and think about her._ The girl _is _skinny, even as a wolf, the tough pads never enough to brace against the cold. _My foot,_ she hisses to herself again, willing them not to hear her, willing herself to hide the hatred of the wolf in the rejection of the language that implies it. _My foot._ Paul laughs, a wicked hyena sound rattling through the woods around them. Sam shuts him up.

Then she feels it, and with a mix of resentment and relief she realizes something just before the terror hits. _He's right…She is more sensitive_…This snow is slightly melted, the temperature fractionally different. Not warm—no, condensed. The burn is harder in the center of the track.

_It's been here_, she says_. It's hiding its scent some way, but these tracks are fresh_.

_Don't be stupid_, snaps Jared, impatient. He doesn't care about this vampire—_this_ one in particular is no more or less equal than the rest they hunt, so he doesn't understand why he left Kim in his warm bed to chase _this particular vampire_ when they know for a fact that Bella Swan—

_Don't be stupid_, growls the last voice, and no one moves for a minute. Sam is the first to nudge Leah's flank and get them walking. Jacob is not close; he's several yards to the left, but they didn't know that before he spoke.

His human voice, even in their minds, doesn't sound human any more. Leah winces when she feels Jake hear this, and then feels nothing. No stinging retort, no shuffling laughter. Because he doesn't care.

But Leah does. Leah cares for them both right now, because she knows what it is to love someone so much you would do anything to protect them. To be a fool. To choose to suffer.

She bends her head low and then whips it up so fast the whole pack is shocked still. _Embry_, she whispers even in her mind, _she's above you._

And so she is. It has long red hair—_it looks like a Christmas ornament_, Seth thinks, the green and the red, the pack collectively is almost smiling, and then it lands on Embry's back.

He's ready for her. She lowers her head to his neck with such speed Quil almost doesn't make it in time, but he does. She knocks him against a boulder_. Lights out._

But she's distracted. Embry gets her leg.

Leah, Sam, Seth—they're not as organized as they should be, because they're frightened by Quil's stillness. _Lights out_. Leah loses her footing and the vampire dislocates both of her shoulders when it throws her by her front legs_—arms_. Seth takes a brutal gash over his eyes and can't see. Jared grabs one of her arms but loses an ear to the other. She is tougher, stronger, and more ruthless than any vampire they have ever faced.

Embry doesn't let go of her leg.

Sam is about to rush her again with Paul when he sees Jacob in human form behind her. He wonders if he is hallucinating, but Leah sees it too from a distance. Jacob's skin is smeared with black dirt and his face is hidden underneath a sheet of matted hair, but his eyes are shining underneath as he moves silently towards the vampire. He swiftly wraps his arms around her and then—she's gone. He's thrown her against the rocks, a wretched, loose ripping sound filling the world, and then gone. Leah's nose fills up with the vampire's scent—she's coughing, that wicked sweet stink makes her choke, faster than any of the guys, and then it's gone.

Jacob runs after her in in the dark. Embry isn't holding her leg any more.

"Tell me you didn't!" This is from Paul. "Please, for the love of god and all things holy, tell me—" He is panting, and the shock of Jacob's appearance apparently frightened him in to human form.

"Its poison!" Sam is furious—at all of them, at Jacob for behaving like a vigilante, at Quil's silence, at Jared's ear. At their surprise, their arrogance, at the unforeseen price they are paying. He is marching towards Embry with a fierce expression, clearly having changed back to be heard.

_Oh my god Embry_— Leah's thought is cut off by sheer terror. Embry is starting to froth at the mouth. Just a little. He isn't thinking words—a white noise is rushing out of his mind like the static from a television screen left on late at night. _Lights out._ But his eyes are open and staring. A crooked kind of grin chokes his face.

"Jacob!" Sam is screaming his name, staggering in human form... now Leah understands. Jake is big enough to carry one of them back alone with no help; Jared and Paul have phased and are slinging Quil's body over Paul's broad back, positioning him in a fireman's hold. There is almost nothing to do besides wait—and then Jacob reappears, grabs Embry as if he were a tiny doll, a broken, rabid ragdoll—and then he is gone again.

Leah knows that Jacob will take care of Embry, and then he will go. While the trail is hot. Leah knows she may never see him again.

####

_I had a son_, he thinks, staring at the ceiling. He hasn't found the will yet today to transfer out of bed and into his chair; he is dwelling, he is self-indulgent and silly and old. _I had a wife_, he thinks. _I had legs._ It has never been anything besides discipline that gets Billy Black out of bed, now that his life is largely defined by absences. The rest of the day may be alright, present its own reasons for being. Many days he sleeps with the same kind of peace he used to see in his son. It ain't so bad.

But the first moments awake are not good ones, and he has found it harder and harder to drag himself up and over. Just discipline, in the end. _Get up. Get up. Get up. Get up._

_ Give today a chance._

So he does, _maybe_—he thinks out loud, still sleepy—_maybe today he will come home._ Maybe today there will be a miracle cure and Billy himself will run through the woods after his son, screaming to dead gods from the sea to save him, to help him find his boy.

Maybe today the phone will ring.

And then, just as strange as the idea that today may be a day to go to talk to Sarah, put some fresh flowers down and finally fess up that he couldn't do it, he wasn't parent enough without her and he lost him—the phone _does_ ring.

Billy's too slow. He cusses himself when he drops his shirt twice, and it takes him a second to remember to unlock his wheels; he skips the answering machine and goes right out the front door. He skids on the gravel till he makes it to the main road and he can feel wind on his face as he picks up speed, but he doesn't care. Something more than discipline is in effect today. If he could feel them still, he'd feel it in his guts.

His heart breaks when he realizes the man coming to him isn't Jake. It's Embry, his quiet friend, little Embry Call, panting and sweating—No. Embry is sobbing.

"It's so bad Billy," he gasps. He has run very far, to be so winded. "He's hurt so bad, _so bad_—"

"Bring him home," Billy says and Embry staggers.

"He's got some woman, somebody with him—"

"Bring him home," Billy says. But Embry says it over and over—_somebody, some body_—and Billy realizes she's dead. "Leave her. Bring him home."

"He won't," sobs Embry again.

"Then take me to him," Billy says, and Embry picks him up out of the chair as if he weighed no more than wind, and they run.

_This will be what heaven is like_, Billy thinks, and he forgets. He only knows the passage of air on his face. He hasn't gone this fast since he and Sarah were young, since—and then there's his son. What's left of his son.

Jacob is throwing heaps of dirt over his shoulder with his bare hands, but he is bleeding so much that they are wet when they land. A dead woman lies next to him; huge brown eyes stare out of her dark face, frozen. She doesn't weep, but the two wolves do.

"Help him," Billy says, and Sam is the first to leap in the pit with Jake. The woman is deep in the earth after an hour.

Jacobs's heartbeat is slow. It is slow, slower than the fade of the winter, slower than grief. Billy holds his son's filthy, blood stained hand, and it takes a minute to realize Jake is staring at him and squeezing. Billy leans close.

"Bella," Jake whispers, and squeezes again.

Embry screams in rage. Sam threatens to dig up the dead woman and bring her to Charlie's daughter, blind with hate, but Billy remembers, and understands.

It's the same hand where she was bitten. And lived.

"Get the pack," Billy says. The two men stare at him. "Help him," says Billy again. "Bring him home."

They do as they're told.

####

The first time he sees her, he follows her. It was mostly guilt-as was so often the case with Edward—that got his feet moving. She was so far beyond the boundaries of La Push that he thought he was mistaken, but then the familiarity of her smell—_stench,_ he shuddered—became clear. One of the homebound LaPush wolves, excepting, of course, the infamous Jacob Black, damn his name to hell, was crossing the tundra. For no obvious reason.

He tracked her for three days. Telling himself it was rude, he avoided her thoughts, but he couldn't help but wonder if their tenor was what attracted him in the first place—deep grief, resolve, and then, the luminescence of imagination, shimmering across the ice like a veil. She was a dreamer. When they crossed the border back in to Washington she spoke to him, the rustle of her fur as she lazily disappeared into the underbrush nowhere near as loud as the sentence she sent his mind: _"That's the last time you follow me, vamp. Don't expect to do it again and live."_ She'd known he was there; she'd let him come along to learn how he tracked. To better understand the predatory nature of vampires.

"I'm not like the others," he yelled, ruffled. "They're not going to _watch_ you gallop around for days before they kill you." She never replied.

From then on, he sought opportunities to follow her. They were the only ones fast enough to play such a game and keep it interesting.

####

She prefers the buttes in New Mexico, where the land and light are the same colors as her. Red Earth. White light. The only place she could be a chameleon: the desert. Perhaps Mars. With James gone, part of her longed for a separate life—an unwelcome second guess. Vampires didn't need to breathe….what if she started her whole life over in some dark corner of the US, traveled the usual channels, and became a perfect astronaut? At the last minute, she could crawl out of her suit and sail through the void, counting stars until the gravity of some brutal planet tore her body apart and the atmosphere ripped her with flames_. No._ James would have gawked at the idea of reassimilation, of suicide. _Grief was for humans,_ he would say. _Vampires fight until death. Hunting is life._

So she took this option; she considered it a private weakness, but then, it had the same face as loyalty. If only he had loved her. If only she hadn't been another instrument in the tracker's arsenal, she could feel utterly free in mimicking his mission…But he hadn't loved her. She didn't understand why she still loved him.

_Was_ it love anymore? Or did it have another name…the only thing that welled as deeply inside of her was the intrinsic need for blood. The constant hunger, the fever that inevitably lead to the hunt.

And so these parallel guides landed her here: the desert. But not the red one she preferred; instead, she scaled the sparkling white sands surrounding Phoenix.

Victoria had removed all of her clothing; she was virtually indistinguishable from the quartz deposit she laid flat against. Searing temperatures raised her body almost uncomfortably but she stayed still. A diamond iguana.

She pressed herself tightly against the rock, equal pressure between her body and the quartz, except for the hollow of her throat. On a slender chain, the wolf's tooth nestled in the cave there. More than any other precaution she knew this was the key to her safety.

She could have killed them all—except that last wretch. The whelp had chased her for a day and a half on her rotten, half gone leg; if she hadn't gotten lucky with that gulch in Idaho—not to mention the hunting party—she'd no doubt she'd be dead. But she had, and she'd lived, and after she'd rested and fed, she'd noticed the tooth lodged in what was left of her ankle.

Something told her to keep it—the same something that guided her to the gulch, that told her how to evade the Cullens, or when feeding grounds became too risky—so she did. And for a while, it remained mysterious, but then she noticed: the Cullens got sloppier. They were never quite as quick.

She'd gotten so close—the girl was reckless. But they'd realized, and redoubled. She was never alone now. But then, neither was Victoria. They were constantly under surveillance, watched; it had its similarities to love. The same part of her that longed to escape James wondered if this was the true motive for her. She dismissed it.

She waited until sundown and then until midnight and then an hour past. The girl would be getting off work soon. The rich smell of her blood under the filth of her uniform prickled in Victoria's memory…so close.

She stood in the dark, sand pelting against her, and climbed a water tower so she could do some surveillance of her own. Two miles away on the flat desert stretch, Victoria watched the windows in the diner dim. There were no Cullens hovering about; when she was sure, she slithered down from her perch and covered the distance in less than three minutes.

Something held her back when she reached the parking lot and she swore. What could it have been? None of the wretched Cullen clan were present…but she stayed with her gut and flattened her body on the strip of dune closest to the lot, glad there was no moonlight to give her away.

When Bella finally got in her truck and drove away, Victoria saw her sentinel. The blonde rolled out from under the truck as Bella drove away and stood in the dust cloud her blustery vehicle left. She was also naked. "Surely you didn't sign up for this job." Victoria stretched, backing away. Something told her she wouldn't be chased; the blonde was rarely Bella's guard and Victoria suspected she didn't particularly relish the duty.

"It's not a church pot-luck," the blonde hissed back, swinging her arms around as if she were up to bat. "Family isn't something you sign up for. It's just something you do." The late twentieth century affectation suited her, even if the polish in her speech from some earlier time hadn't worn off. All of her consonants were too hard.

"She's not your family." Victoria spoke in a normal voice. Forty yards were between them; if it came to a chase she had a decent shot, because she knew the surrounding desert so well, but she didn't run.

"Why do you still care, after all this time?" The blonde didn't. She could have been shopping for shoes with an elderly aunt or giving her grandmother a ride to the grocery store; instead she was babysitting her brother's troublesome ex soul mate. It was confusing to Victoria. She found that even though she understood, she could not empathize. It yanked on the thread tying her to James. "Edward says he didn't even love you."

"Edwards ideas about love and mine don't overlap very much," replied Victoria. The blonde shrugged.

"He's a bore, but he _can_ read minds. You should move on."

Victoria laughed. "You don't care for anything, do you? You don't love anything?" She felt her hair, heavy with rocks and dirt, stir in the wind as she shook it out. "It doesn't matter, in the end, whether he loved me." Her hair whirled around her, tangling and whirring. "I love him."

"And he's dead. This hobby sucks."

"So I should do what?" Victoria began to back away, into the desert. The fact that Edward had known that James didn't love her was momentarily humiliating, and it underlined this—this _everything_, this empty routine, the fact that this vampire in front of her was tied just as tightly by these threads. Of course she loved. And it bound her here, to the night. Maybe love was worthless. An empty duty. She hardened herself. "I should suddenly give a shit about human trifles, like shoes and real estate and Saint Tropez?" Victoria laughed. "No. Never."

"Why not give a shit about someone else?" The blonde watched her back into the desert indifferently. Her gut had proved right again; she would not be followed. "Why not give a shit about yourself?"

"I was wrong," Victoria spoke again, finally having to raise her voice. "It's not that you don't love—you're being here tonight of course that you do. But you've never lost what you've loved." Another foot in to the dark. The blonde's hair now was also free of stones and dirt, rising like a shroud around her shoulders in the wind. "We don't change. We aren't made to move on."

"I've never tasted human blood," the blonde said. Victoria was stunned, stilled; at first she thought she'd heard wrong, but the other vampire continued. "We're made all kinds of ways. You should love someone else."

"Save it for your brother," growled Victoria. She suddenly hated the blonde. She hated her assurance, her family, her freedom. She hated her for being more than she dared to understand. The distance between them widened quickly, but the blonde had still heard her.

"I'm working on him!" She yelled after Victoria. "You're more alike than you know!" The words followed her through the clear night all the way past the lights of the city, and the limits of the state.

####

"_Tell me why he comes here,"_ she demanded. She was in wolf form, as always. Edward deliberately poked around in some of her more superficial imagery to see if she could tell. She couldn't. He sighed, and then caught himself—had he actually _wanted_ her to be able to tell? She _stank_. And she hated him. He sighed again.

"I can't read his mind, and it's rude, besides." She slapped him with the human version of herself flipping him the bird. He rolled his eyes.

The small clearing between them was a grave. They both knew it and they both knew Jacob's mother's ashes were in an urn on Billy Black's mantle, waiting. They did not know who was buried here.

"There 's nothing you could give me that would make such behavior permissible," Edward snapped at her as she sent him more images, some of theme cruelly goading—tiny children, shanks of lamb, Bella Swan. He turned to leave.

She sent him a final image: a dead Bella Swan, bloody a horror movie extra. By the time he's turned to attack, she's already across the border in La Push.

####

She kept waiting for it to change, but it didn't…There it was again: her own face, and not. Like the human face she saw in James's mind she hadn't quite known as her own; all of the bones were in the right place—the small mouth, flat forehead, small, upturned nose, so much _smallness_…but in her human face her eyes had been wide with terror and dark brown, the same color as Bella Swan's (why she loved her so, Jasper would tease, his nose crinkling)…and in this vision they were red. The violent, humiliating red of slaughter.

_If you saw the past instead of the future_, Jasper whispered to her_, then your whole family wouldn't exist. We wouldn't exist._ He doesn't finish. The past would drive her vampire self mad, the way the future had tortured her human self. The change drew a veil between her lives, reducing the past to silky ash. Or velvet dark, in her case. A merciful, impenetrable dark.

But then—the future could still torment even a vampire, as it turned out. Jasper could not calm her—_it's not just us_, she wept, she wept bitterly—and she did not have to tell him the horrors that marched before her eyes. He could feel them, like an ocean of anxious fire consuming her bones, snaking behind her fingers, a ruined Medusa. She was tortured again. All her worlds began to fall into one another, the time between now and never and always caving and crumbling as she helplessly watched. Headaches. Nonsense. Jasper held her and tried not to become afraid.

There was only a thread of the hope. A void, like her previous past—an Unseeing. Something so odd she didn't recognize it in the blackness. And she may not have, if not for Edward.

_He's following her again_, she tells Carlisle, she tells Esme. Jasper already knows; he feels Edward's prickled interest (and other things, she finds out later, of course, things so strange Jasper didn't want to know, to share them with words) creeping out of the long woods behind their house. They are about to take flight. How can they stay? All the towers are crumbling. Jasper holds her close; Esme clucks but does not understand because, of course, she has only had two worlds. She has never been invaded by the future. They must take flight. They must take advantage of the Unseeing.

And it is secret, of course. The private void—it is secret to Alice, and then, as she follows the blank spot through the woods, consumed with the absence of Edward, Jasper feels her knowing it. What they must do.

The void, the missing place in the center of all found things, is mercy, once again.

There are the things floating through the static as they struggle to map the roof. The madness is happening again, she is sure of it, and afraid, but Jasper calls to her, reassures her, soothes her dead serotonin reuptake channels somehow. _The obsession is what he needs to let go of now,_ he tells her. _It's not going to be clear, love. War changes everything._ If he were someone else, she would feel patronized, tricked (Edward, so fascinated by soldiers and too young for war, Edward whom she hadn't seen in weeks) but it was Jasper, who had been in many wars, had been more soldier than grown man, than vampire even, before her. _It's my turn,_ he says, and the white sparkle of his naked chest cuts through the other whiteness—the answer, but the fear, that blind spot—that constantly invades her mind—_it's my turn to soothe you._

For a split second she sees Edward talking to Bella—in a van. Somewhere in the city—they're here! They came! His face is so still, her beloved, ridiculous brother—but she has stood up too quickly, she has done it again…they are coming.

The roof burns their bare hands as she and Jasper scrabble in the blinding noon sun to get away from the grey cloaks swelling out of the window turrets. So hot—She wonders if her skin will peel and blister, and then knows she has gone mad, she is insane, because of course she can feel nothing—Jasper throws a psychic gavel of calm and focus at her so hard, her eyes close. They still run. They are faster than the grey cloaks—_concentrate, Alice,_ she hisses at herself. When will they be? How do we get away?

And she slithers down the dark side of the wall, Jasper leaping down and crushing the centuries old cobblestones where he lands like a pulp beneath a child's careless feet. They rush in to the crowd; Alice knows there are more hunters here, and she fears—she fears, she fears! That is the seed, the madness, that horrible, human fear—they will find them before the plan can be dropped off, hidden; Jasper of course would not leave her.

Uh oh…the past opens. _How rude,_ she hisses, but she can't stop what she sees any more.

_Our only fight and it's in front of children_, she hissed at him. Wait—this hasn't happened yet?

The blonde girl had stared at them, her arms wire thin and wrapped tight around the children with her squatting in the bracken. They hadn't yet trusted them enough to come out; only enough to eat the food they brought. Raw and savage. Alice had been repulsed.

_I'm not fighting you,_ Jasper had drawled.

It was the accent, and, of course, the chemical manipulation, but the accent really—the little boy with the same slow drop in his speech was the first to really trust them.

It had taken longer than it should have, but the fear-the wretched humanity of fear….As Jasper pointed out, no other child could have been so brave, no matter what they gave them- food, and promised them a life with the Hunter, no matter that none of them was near puberty yet, no matter—the girl, she had mastered her fear eventually. And now Alice marveled at her, felt her feet sinking into the ancient stones as if they were sand, pounding as she ran, and felt fear. She felt human.

"_You may die,"_ she'd told the girl_. "I cannot see how this will end."_ She hadn't hidden her own accent; Edwards's accent, the time was right but the inflection was wrong. She was Southern once also.

"_I am not afraid to die,"_ snorted the girl. She'd laid a thin hand on the head of the smallest boy. _"I am afraid my pack will die. I am afraid of being human, of starving. I am not afraid to die in a fight."_ Jasper nodded; he felt the conviction—the righteous indignation and pride—rolling off of her body.

Alice swept her white arm back.

"_Then we have to talk about a plan."_ But the plan had holes—wide, static filled fields, galaxies of unknowns. The plan was skeletal at best, a string of phantoms…the plan depended on the blind spot. _It's how the rest of us live every day_, Jasper whispered to her, stroking her forehead. _It's more complex and pretty scary, sure, but it's a good plan. Depending on the best people. It'll be alright._

And now they were running. One of the holes had opened wide and was swallowing them.

_Please,_ Alice prayed—fear made humans pray!—_Please, please, please let them find the map. Please please please allow them to rig the explosives up where we marked them—please let one of them read. Please let one of them speak English._

Caius's face looked out at her and she dodged—too late, she realized it had been a vision. They grew closer. Jasper circled back.

_Please please please—_

It was more than one hand. Three latched on to her legs and one arm; they stood stock still for a millisecond before Jasper attacked. It provided her with just enough time to see that they'd made it—they'd run right past the drop point. Jasper's hands were full of white limbs. He'd gotten the map in place.

The hole yawned in front of her again.

White limbs—more and more—she was still, but not. She was flying, but she couldn't see far enough for both of them. There were more and more of the grey moths, fluttering, nibbling, pulling harder. The holes—it was a series of holes. There was more time than the future and past and present could hold in this place, more nothing than Alice could bear. Madness. _She'd been mad as a human._

It was a cemetery full of open graves. White limbs and static in the graves.

Aro's stinking face. Bella Swan, screaming in agony. Red. More holes. More absences. But now, it seemed the loss was not merciful. The void was suffering, not escape.

Jasper screamed and it shredded through the haze of her mind—the trilogy that struck her catatonic. He was whimpering—the white arms pulled him towards the void. Further.

_Please,_ she prayed again. _Please, please please, let me die first. Please let us die before...please-_

The static swallowed her whole.

####

"_I told you never to follow me again," _she snarls, her voice stinging his mind. The wolf rumbles in her voice—the wolf, itself, reminds him, for some odd reason, of Sam. Her former lover, the alpha. He knows this will sting her, and congratulates himself smugly when he finds he can keep it to himself.

"I don't follow dogs around, " he snaps instead. "I merely wanted a word. A civil one."

"_Then talk to someone else,"_ she says, her slender body slipping through the trees. But she isn't headed towards La Push. She's going back to the grave—Jacob's haunted private family tomb.

"Then forget civil," Edward taunts her by running alongside her, moving his head closer to hers, as if she couldn't hear him. He knows she can register the subtle insult, and of course she reacts predictably, snapping her menacing jaws as he dances away.

"_Perhaps you don't see the irony in a vampire asking for a civil word,"_ she hisses at him. Edward watches her from a distance, still regulating his jaunt through her thoughts. He was a fool to attempt to speak with her; he doesn't understand himself, really, to know why he tries.

"I do," he says quietly from the trees. She waits a moment, and then begins her trek to the grave once more. "Wait, please—" he lands softly on the ground behind her. There are no birds in the trees. _Everything is afraid of us_, he thinks, and in his moment of distraction he hasn't noticed her watching him.

"_You do, don't you,"_ she thinks at him. _"But you're too selfish to think that I might not care to let you talk to me. That I might not be interested—has that happened to you in the past decade? That someone found you uninteresting?"_ She hasn't moved very far; her soft, padded feet make soft crunching noises as think sticks crackle underneath them. _"When was the last time someone told you no?"_

"People tell me no all the time, " Edward says, stung. He stands upright but doesn't follow her.

"_Vampires aren't people,"_ she retorts, and he is furious when he realizes that she is, of course, correct. He was thinking of his own family; with humans, if his face doesn't work, his wallet always has.

"The wolves tell us no," he shouts after her; he is startled again when he realizes he is shouting because his is angry. He can barely remember this kind of anger…defensive. For once.

"_Sam doesn't," _she yells back at him, and then she makes a mistake. He knows she thinks he can't hear her mind, because he shouted—she thinks she's out of range. And she continues along that line—_Sam can't say no, can risk nothing because he can't foresee consequences, because he's weak, because he isn't meant to be alpha_—and Edward suddenly realizes the depth of her ability to filter her thoughts around him. And then he realizes the depth of her thoughts.

The wolves are strategically redesigning their lives to an offensive position. To keep more children from becoming wolves. Because somehow, vampires turn them in to wolves.

Edward realizes he's still following her, and he hates himself, but he doesn't stop. She hates being a wolf. She hates the long series of traps she sees in front of her—the reservation, her long, brown limbs, her silver fur, her womanhood.

She wonders why more vampires don't do the things she wishes she could, with their memory and eternal life and void of family ties—she thinks that with guilt—_why don't more them live underwater, or explore Antarctica, or work with rescue teams to save people trapped in rubble, or cure cancer, or—_

"_Why do you follow me?"_ She's reared on him, her lips curled back. The clearing behind her wafts wildflowers and grief and the smell of Jacob Black—that's who, he realizes. He was wrong. Her wolf voice…it reminds Edward of Jacob Black. Not Sam.

She knows he could hear her. The gig is up. The filter is firmly reattached, but now, Edward can see her embarrassment and fury through it—she knows he heard everything.

There are only three feet between them. The smell is overwhelming.

"I don't know," he says, truthfully, and runs away.

####

"You're a pervert," Emmett says, chuckling. "Duh. Who didn't know that?"

"You're vile," Edward snarls, but Jasper is watching him. Emmett is too self-absorbed to notice; he is distracted temporarily by the smell of something that clambors above them, and then he remembers only the laughter. Jasper pushes his curiosity with a wave of adrenaline and he scampers off into the woods.

"You pity her," Jasper says to Edward. His voice is empty of emotion, oddly; he is afraid of Edward's bizarre habits regarding Leah the same way a reckless scout would endanger his platoon's mission. Edward is taken aback. He wants Jasper to understand but he cannot, of course, explain. Or lie. His brother would know.

"Somewhat," Edward admits. "Her lot in life has been unkind."

"It's not the same as yours," Jasper speaks again. Firm. He isn't moving, however; he seems to be waiting for something.

"What do you want me to say?" Edward and Jasper were almost the same age when they died. They are chivalrous, reactionary, and more prone to murder than the rest of their family, but the stark interruptions on the slick sheen over Jasper's skin delineate every difference between then. Edward desperately wants Jasper to respect him; he knows his older brother feels like-wise.

"I want you to tell me what these other things are….when you're near her." Jas crosses his arms. "I can't tell—I can't understand them." His face is twisted.

"Curiosity, and pity, yes."

"You're confused."

"Of course I am—she stinks, she's cruel, she's—"

"She's nothing like Bella Swan." Edward stares back at Jasper, speechless at his words. "It's not the same, Edward, I'm not saying it is—I remember the way you felt about her." Jasper uncrosses his arms and takes a deep breath. An unnecessary breath. "It began as curiosity. A high level of curiosity, and you followed her too—"

"It's _nothing_ alike," Edward growls, "It was everything I could do not to kill Bella, tear her to pieces—"

"It's exactly alike!" Jasper's scars do not refract light; he is unnaturally dim for a vampire. "You believed Bella to be your mate simply because you couldn't hear her—"

"I loved her." Edward's grief is all he can feel now. Endless.

"That is the difference," Jasper says quietly. "But the rest…even the initial revulsion, the fascination…"

"With Bella, it was more like a cat playing with a mouse."

"Never," Jasper dismisses him. "You're too hard on yourself. You're glamorizing it."

"I am not," Edward whispers.

"You can't help it," Jasper speaks evenly over the grief. "Edward—I know, more than anyone but you, how you feel about both of these women. I know…how you feel about Bella."

They look at each other for a minute. Edward has missed Jasper, who couldn't be around him for extended periods of time when he'd left his human love; the weight of Edward's horrible grief crippled him. "I can never—I can't even continue the thought," Edward speaks softly. He's noticed Jasper's jaw clenching. "She's a passing intrigue in what promises to be a long life of mediocrity," he continues, lifting his head. "If you could read her mind, her imagination, you'd understand why I bother…she's a refreshing distraction." Jasper still doesn't speak. "Surely, Jas, you understand—humans are exhausting, their ridiculous blithering superficialities—"

"Just like vampires," Jas interrupts, a thin arched eyebrow reminding Edward of the rest of their world. Edward sighs. "If you could choose a mate, Edward, you would never pick one of your own kind."

"Not true," Edward firms his jaw. "If Bella had been—without my doing—"

"I don't think so," shrugs his older brother. "Not without some absurd tragedy having caused it." He stares at Edward. "It's one of the things you like best about the wolf. She hates you." Edward scoffs. "But that wouldn't ring so true if she didn't hate herself also." Edward stops and stares at him. "The depth of her feelings of injustice, and duty, and self-loathing…not to mention her wretchedly broken heart—a result of her supernatural nature—"

"Shut up, Jasper," Edward snarls, but it's too late—Jasper is too loud to ignore, even with his mouth closed.

"_She's practically your twin."_ They stare at each other for a moment, and Edward flinches as he watches Jasper reprocess his emotions…and Leah's. Without being able to stop himself, he bristles protectively, and then wilts when he realizes it. Jasper nods, and it infuriates him.

"You've followed us." Jasper's mind answers him; Jasper is only slightly slower than Edward, but in battle-play their matches are evened by experience. The platoon leader creeping after the wayward scout. "You have _no_ right—"

"_You read her mind."_ Suddenly, Jasper's wickedly deformed face is next to his. _"You do it against her wishes."_

"Which is worse?" Edward spits back. "I can only see what she thinks, and she knows it, she shields me—what you do is so invasive—"

"_I couldn't bear it,"_ Jasper is gone just as soon, the threat of his close presence overwhelmed by the vulnerability of turning his back. He isn't speaking. Jasper couldn't watch Edward become fascinated by another mortal creature, couldn't bare being tortured by his hopelessness, by Alice's desperate attempts to save Edward—

"Don't touch her!" Edward forcibly turns his brother towards him. "Don't ever—"

"_I can't. It would start a war."_ Leah's death was the first solution he'd considered, but Edward can tell that strategically, Jasper has eliminated that possibility.

"Why are we talking about this then?" Edward can't help it; a snarl slips into his speech. "Why can't I enjoy this one, ridiculous, guaranteed temporary amusement? Why can't my suffering be privately endured, why can't my passions be my own—"

"Because you live in in a family full of the damned," Jasper spits. "As if it were ever only about you—as if visions of your future didn't intrude on Alice's daydreams and the fact that you feel like a wretch didn't follow me like a shadow." Jasper may as well have slapped Edward; his selfishness shames him. "You know damn well why," his brother finishes. They are still for a minute. "At any rate," Jasper continues, "that's settled and done. I'm talking to you about it because…."

He drifts. His silence invites Edward in.

"_This could be an opportunity, brother,"_ he hears. Puzzlement. _"This could be—"_

"You're insane," sputters Edward. He's ashamed of having defended his interest, and he instantly retreats. "I expect that kind of absurdity from Emmett—"

"This is your chance to be brave, Edward." Jasper faces him squarely. Not a sound, not one living animal in the deep dark woods besides them. "You wanted to be a soldier, but you missed your chance. You don't have the stomach for killing, unless its to protect, and even then you gave it up. You thought loving a human girl-child was the best you could do?" He takes a step closer, knowing his words are cruel. _"There's no risk in loving the weak, Edward."_ Edward is livid, he turns to run, and Jasper rounds on him. _"Do you want to do something brave, something great? Then help heal that girl, Edward."_

The two men stare at each other.

"It may never be love—that's not what I meant. It may be that one day the two of you will be companions."

"Nonsense."

"No—listen. Why not?" Jasper tentatively places his hand on Edward's shoulder. "I've been watching this for a long time, Edward. Something…genuine and deep is happening there."

"I've thought, all this time, that my grief had made me mad," Edward snarls. "And here we are—brother, I owe you such an apology. I'm sorry my feelings have driven you insane."

"You're behaving like a child." Jasper snaps back in to military mode. "The facts aren't convenient, Edward. They don't care about what you wish was true." Jasper is hard on himself; he knows it may be his own mind that keeps him killing and ashamed; he doesn't spare Edward's ego. "They say we don't change, Edward—they say we can never love again, that our nature is defined—_you_ have the opportunity to be different." Desperation is in Jasper's voice now—some of it for himself, much of it for them both. Strangely, Edward sees some of it for the girl. "You can _prove_ that we can change."

Vampires can be still together for indefinite periods of time, and the two resemble graves for the rest of the hour, reading minds and emotions, back and forth wordlessly arguing. Edward is furious with himself; he decides to never follow her again, to never again speak to her silent silver back and feel the whip-crack of her retort. He says a private farewell to her expansive—_beautiful, really_, he thinks, and shudders—imagination. Jasper feels him decide.

"Coward," he says. Edward chooses to shrug, even though he feels like lunging at Jasper. He contemplates it, but is interrupted by his brother's next words. "She's the only thing that eclipses your grief over the human girl."

"_She's_ a human girl," Edward snaps, and then remembers his choice, and shrugs. He puts his sadness back on like a coat; somehow, knowing he's chosen it makes it heavier, and he sighs. _Damn Jasper. Damn Leah._

"She's super hot." Emmett has reappeared, bored and missing Rose. He can't believe that they're still talking about that werewolf chick. Rose will laugh her ass off about it, he can't wait to tell her even though the fact that she's rooting for Edward to hook up with a dog freaks him out. "She's the hottest human-ish chick I've ever seen."

"Edward's never seen her human form," Jasper says nonchalantly, knowing this is like dropping a nuclear bomb as he steps carefully out of the way. Emmett can't help himself; he thrashes Edward's back with fists like boulders.

"Dude! You have a crush on a dog? Like a for-real dog? You _are_ kinky-"

"I've seen her," Edward hisses. "I've seen what she looks like—"

"In her own mind," Jasper finishes. One eyebrow is high on his forehead again, and he thinks the rest so only Edward can hear his taunts. _"And what, pray tell, does a girl who hates herself think about the way she looks? Your brains are really not as impressive as I thought, isn't that sort of the thing covered in Psych 101—"_

"She's wicked hot," Emmett's mind is full of long distance shots of Leah around town; even at a distance, it's evident. She is beautiful. Edward sniffs.

"It doesn't matter." Emmett tries to shove him again, and he dodges. "I'll be spending a lot of less time in the woods."

"That's a bummer," Emmett says unexpectedly, and he isn't only disappointed that the jokes will dry up. Edward is shaken when he realizes that Emmett, his blithely affectionate, blustering brother has noticed something very simple neither Edward or Jasper has: Edward is happier after he follows Leah through the woods.

"_Coward,"_ Jasper hisses in his mind.

They head for home.

####

It had been at least two years since he'd seen Leah, smelled her; when her lithe form came out of the trees screaming at him to get away from the Swan place it was her mind's voice, of course, that slapped across his dead neurons in a wave of bitter recognition. She hated him. As he drifted down the street, staring through the dark towards the cloud of exhausted and frightened thoughts pouring out of the wolves, his mind left Bella for just a moment.

_Why does she hate me so much more, now? I did what she asked._

He is almost embarrassed when he remembers her trembling body on the lawn, naked under the black sheet of her hair. But why be embarrassed. It's just a human girl. Like a painting. Like a broken Boticelli, Venus from an ocean of endless pines, riding a wave of fury.

His thoughts shyly return to Bella and Jacob's echoes; he isn't aware of making the decision to avoid Leah, but he keeps further from the house than he'd originally intended, and doesn't go back when he hears her speaking to Bella through the window.

He goes into the woods. Alone.

After the battle, after Jasper relieves his horrible duty outside of the cabin where Bella Swan and Jacob Black are falling in love, he wonders if he should kill the boy. Well. The _man_, now.

For some reason, the aimless drift in the woods guides him slowly to the ground so mysteriously guarded by the wolves; wildflowers, but less grief is in the air. Still no living creature besides himself—he chuckles bitterly. Nevermind_. Everything here is dead._

_It would kill her_, he thinks, and he also thinks she deserves only the best and most beautiful life—a full human life, with children and true love and all the things beautiful young women all over the world deserve. _But her_—but her especially. For her, he will, of course, kill his own kind. He will behave like the lapdog he once accused Jacob Black of being. As he thinks these things he is consumed by sadness, so deep, so crushing, that he doesn't move for so long the birds return.

"_I didn't know they put up a tombstone."_ Leah's forgotten voice cuts into his mind. _"You look a little evil to be an angel, but hey, whatever they can afford."_ She stands on the edge of the clearing. _"Times are tough."_

The hate is not there. He doesn't move, but he listens; she is shielding him, but he reaches out and plucks at the few threads there. Her voice is older now, with an undertone of softness. The kind of change that can only happen with time.

"_Thanks for saving my life,"_ she says quietly, and he realizes sharply that he can still taste her blood. If he thinks about it. If he doesn't pay attention, and wanders back to the moment. He slides his tongue across his teeth, shakes it off.

"Of course," he murmurs. He wants to be left alone; she doesn't leave. They are both still for a long time, but the birds do not return again.

"Why are you still here?" He asks her bluntly. Painfully honest. The truth is alright, with them.

"_Me?"_ She laughs a little bit, with only a shade of bitterness. _"Why are you here?"_ The grave belongs to neither of them, but she is a wolf on tribal land. He doesn't belong here. His feet feel immovable.

There's no answer he can give her_. This is where I will start the fire that twill burn the forest down. Inside this grave is a secret, and I will dig it up, reveal its horror to Bella, and she will love me again. I will stay here and be still until I finally harden to rock. Until my dead heart forgets._

"_You kept me company."_ She says suddenly. Edward is shocked out of his self-pity.

"What?"

"_Years ago. When I was still hurting." _In spite of years of practiced control, her wolf body prances a little nervously. _"When…when we met, it was still so soon after…"_

"Oh," Edward says, genuinely surprised.

"_I know,"_ she says, and she means that she knows what is happening to him. How it feels, this hopelessness. He wants to rebuff her, but she's right.

"_That_ was company?" Incredulity creeps into his voice.

"_As much as I could stand, back then."_ She dances in on her silver feet, feeling awkward and bare as he watches her intently. _"I could handle you partly, at least, I think, because…because you'd tried to do the right thing with Bella."_ She grows more nervous. _"You were hurt then. But it's not the same—"_

"-No," he cuts her off. "It's not." They are quiet and still again.

"Why are you still alive," he whispers finally. He knows she knows—_how did you survive this—why did you choose to survive this, to stay alive? Why bear the unbearable?_

"_I had—have—a mission,"_ she says firmly. And she opens her mind to him. Suddenly. As if she'd been waiting for him to ask. Her thoughts and plans rush out at him like electricity across the clearing; they startle him into movement. He sways, on his feet.

"Why did you show me that?" He can't keep up with her, he is still sorting her ambitions from the concern someone will find them here, from worry over how he doesn't smell so bad since—"I saw you naked," he says out loud, and laughs.

"_Grief, stage two,"_ Leah watches him warily. _"Madness." _He laughs again. She's funny.

"You don't smell bad any more either," he realizes out loud. It cuts his laughter short. "I mean, as bad-" He tries, and it's true, the acrid undertone is still there…

"_I know what you mean,"_ she says, impatient. Her nose, he finds, is more sensitive, so the smell is still worse for her, but another smell intrudes on his memory. So high on her long thigh, the soft skin under his mouth—he is suddenly and horrifically embarrassed_. My god, she's right._ He has gone mad.

"I'm so sorry," he speaks in clipped, embarrassed chirps. "I've never been that close to a woman before in that-in that condition—I should have covered you immediately—"

"_It's okay, Edward,"_ she sighs. It appears she expected him to freak out , she calls him old-fashioned. _"I'm glad you focused on my not dying, frankly, instead of me not naked." _

Naked. He realizes his mouth is hanging open, and snaps it shut. This time, she laughs. It's over when he speaks again.

"I'm sorry about your family." He says. He is reacting to her thoughts—he can't focus, can't keep anything strait. "I'm sorry my family has done this to your family." She's not laughing now. "We didn't know-

"_We don't understand it yet,"_ she interrupts. A bit of the hate is back, but she's working through it. She wants something else much more than she hates him now. Ah—the imprints. It's so strange, the unfettered access to her mind-he can't keep up. Her thoughts race around him in a swarm. _"It won't only be you, in the future,"_ she continues on a previous thread, throwing him again_. "We thought we were heading them off at the pass, giving the kids a chance…."_ She trails off, then spins to face him.

"_Help me,"_ she says in her dark mind's voice.

He resists when he feels the undertone of Jacob Black's wolf tucked inside the sound, and then he is unable to concentrate again. She's come closer to him. Her nose pushes against his leg, startling, wet and cold. So different, he absently notes, from her human body. _"Help me,"_ she says. No longer dancing on her four feet. Completely still, completely intent on something…something so tenuous, so brittle, so far away. Something magnificent. Something she can only do with the right ally. Him.

And then, just like that, he knows she will save him. This is how it is, between them. This is how it will be.

####

She has a hand on her hip, in perfect imitation of the slim brown body in front of her. The other children are gathered around them; one small blonde boy chews his lip absently while the rest wait. "Chicken," she says slowly, but she's not taunting her opponent. She plays with the word, rolling it for longer than necessary. "Do you mean afraid?"

"Whatever you wanna call it," he sasses back, and his head waggles dangerously on his neck. One of his friends tugs his frayed shorts but neither of them leave. They all stare at the center of the circle as if a pair of cobras were facing off.

"I'm not the one who may die," she says quietly, and suddenly the group is no longer tense with the fusion of one childhood with another; a church like silence descends on the small crowd. One of the taller children looks around. No grown-ups.

"I won't die," he says quietly back. It is not in his nature to be quiet, and the gravity of the dare is evident when he also stands up straight. "I won't die, I'll be a super-wolf, and we'll be blood brothers."

"I'm a girl," she says, similarly standing taller. Her bones are lengthening. The food here has been good to her. "But I understand."

The ritual is brief. Out comes her silver knife, one hand over another. He heals almost instantly, but she drips on the dirt for a while. They all hold their breath while they wait to see if he stops. He doesn't.

"Now you can stay," he says, grinning. With the arbitrary measurements of children, an eternity has passed, and he is safe. "Now you can marry me and we can have super wolf babies." The crowd is giggling, rushing to get back to easier moments, to move past the danger.

"Gross," she says, and gives chase. The children all look the same by the end of the day, dirty feet and big smiles.

####

"I can't race you," he says slowly. The wrinkles in his face are deepest where he smiles, and he does so often still. "I'll just sit in the sun with you, if that's okay." His heavy hand rests incongruously on the head of some kind of beast; slick brown fur covers a dense body shaped roughly like a large dog's. Or an ape's. Or a woman's. He doesn't seem to notice that his companion is asleep, panting, and he quietly murmurs on. They are both clearly ancient, and have had these kinds of quiet exchanges many times before.

"I love you all the time, but I have to say, there's something special about tomorrow. Its always nice to have you back."

The animal is not asleep, as it turns out. A heavy tail bangs against the wooden floor of the cabin's porch.

"I love you too," he says, and closes his eyes, smile still in place.


End file.
